


The Happy Hour of Assault and the Kiss

by byzantienne, fadeverb



Series: Leo [31]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:02:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 80,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byzantienne/pseuds/byzantienne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo and Zhune have been sent off to cooperate with Gamesters. Vivienne and Maddy have been sent off to work with Magpies. Surely this can only end well.</p><p>In you the wars and the flights accumulated.<br/>From you the wings of the song birds rose.<br/>You swallowed everything, like distance.<br/>Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!<br/>It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.<br/>The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.<br/>-- Pablo Neruda, "The Song of Despair"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which I Ask How High

It’s never a good sign when Zhune brings me the beer I really want. He’s never petty enough to bring me what I wouldn’t drink--and it would defeat the purpose of setting a six-pack in front of me, not to mention starting another stupid argument--but when he takes the time to hunt down obscure microbrews that can only be acquired from three stores in the state, yeah, that’s a bad sign.

Not so bad a sign that I haven’t already gone through a bottle and a half, mind, while he has a cryptic conversation with the whatever-of-the-War we dropped the goods off with two hours ago. Someone’s not happy. Zhune’s not budging. I’m wondering if this will be enough to get me drunk. Tipsy, yes. Drunk, well, it depends on how fast I drink these, and how many exciting interludes Zhune springs on me between beers two and six.

Hotel room of the day: cheap. I mean, not _cheap_ , we’re not in a motel with instant access to the parking lot like I’d prefer, but it’s cheaper than Zhune wants. It’s not even a concession--”You hate the expensive hotels, so here’s a low-end Holiday Inn”--because it makes neither of us happy. It’s just the first place we found with an open room when we realized that if we didn’t stop before the storm hit, we’d end up buried in snow on some godforsaken highway. I’m not entirely sure if vessels can freeze to death, but who wants to find out? What a way to hit Trauma.

I sprawl across the carpet (more sturdy and bland than any more appealing adjective) and try to figure out what the water stain in the ceiling looks like. “Tell her that if she doesn’t like how we got her the stuff, we can give her a full refund and put the shit back.”

Zhune gives me a look, but honestly, what he says to the phone next is pretty much a smoother version of what I just suggested. And that seems to end the conversation at last, after a few more noises of meaningless agreement. We did what she _asked_ , and what she paid for. If she wanted more, she should’ve been more specific.

I have to prop myself upright to keep drinking my beer. “So?”

“So we’re done with that job,” Zhune says, “which we knew already.” He sits down on the edge of the bed, and slips off his shoes. Much nicer shoes than mine, but experience tells me that when you need to do a second-story job, these terrible sneakers are an improvement. (A freezing improvement. I need new shoes or warmer socks or a better climate. Maybe all three.) “I would take you to the hotel bar, but they don’t seem to have one here.”

“And they’d charge four times as much for every drink, and have worse beer.” I finish the second bottle, and resonate the cap off the third. “We should stop doing work for the War if they’re going to be so fussy about it. That whole Word has a problem with rules. And authority figures. And chains of command. And plans.”

“You would know,” Zhune says. He sounds amused, which is neither a good sign nor a bad one anymore. He’s playing the Theft Djinn game again, where he pretends to care about nothing and be amused by everything, as it’s all there for him to play with. “A good thing that you’re well out of it.”

“Aren’t I just.” I have a gulp of the third bottle. They’re warming up, sitting here on the floor with me, and the room doesn’t have a fridge. I could put them out on the balcony, but then they’d freeze through. “Do we have anything else lined up?”

“No, and a good thing, as we’d be hard pressed to reach it.” He waves a lazy gesture that takes in the world around us. Currently invisible with all the curtains drawn, but the snow was piling up outside already when we reached the hotel lobby. “We’ll have to keep ourselves entertained until the snowplows pass in the morning.”

“You’re sure there’s no bar?” I know there isn’t any. I checked already. But hope springs eternal, if only for the sake of conversation.

“I asked at the counter. They recommended the Denny’s next door if we were hungry.”

I spend a moment imagining this. Finish the six-pack, insist I want some fucking pancakes, and drag Zhune through the snow to the diner, then see how long I can nurse a cup of coffee I don’t want before he’s ready to throw me over his shoulder and haul me back to the room. (An easy thing for him to do, when I’m in this vessel. I’d swap, but I don’t want the resulting argument when we’re trapped in this place all night.) “I bet if we set the Denny’s on fire, we’d have warmth _and_ entertainment. What do you say?”

“Leah...”

I wish he wouldn’t call me that, but I’ve given up on that argument, because I can’t come up with any good reason for him not to beyond _I don’t like it_ , and since when has that worked on anyone, ever? “It’s just a suggestion. Something to while away the dark hours of the night, because _someone_ ditched our last car while my books were still in it.”

“Someone should’ve brought her book with her, if she cared that much about finishing it. The car was hot.”

“It was a good car. It handled well on ice. What are we going to take when we leave this place? A van? An SUV? Have you looked at the parking lot out there?”

“If you mind the options that much,” Zhune says, “I’ll do the driving.”

“There’s this whole list of ways to hit Trauma that are embarrassing to explain on the way out, and skidding off the road into a frozen lake would be on the list.” I spin the bottle around between my fingers. “Suppose we could pretend there was a dramatic car chase involved. Judgment again? They’re so...vindictive.”

“It goes with the Word,” Zhune says. “Dominic ought to have been a Cherub, to pursue absurd details to the bitter end the way he does. It’s not as if the Seraph part seems to be doing him any good.”

“I don’t know, his people seem pretty good at making our day worse when we run into them.”

“Don’t be like that,” Zhune says. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy that incident in the graveyard. Not half so much as when we borrowed that--” He ducks when I throw the bottle at him, but at least he stops talking about that. “Do I need to come over there and take those away?”

“Just try it.”

Which he’d usually let pass, but I’m flat on my back with a Djinn on top of me before I can do more than blink. His hand’s wrapped around the same bottle I’m holding, to keep it upright. “I believe,” he says, “that could be arranged.”

“Let go of my beer, Zhune.”

“Now you can’t make up your mind.” He pushes hair back from my face with his free hand, ignoring my attempt to shove him away as if I never even tried. “Do you need me make it up for you?”

“Boys,” Valefor says, crouched down beside us and wearing a razor grin, “I hate to interrupt, but needs must.”

Zhune doesn’t _bolt_ to his feet. He’s too damn smooth for that. But he’s upright and elegant in a split second, while I’m staggering on my feet at his side, having been pulled along for the ride.

My partner always seems like he meant to look exactly that way. Up to the elbows in blood, or dressed to kill, or barefoot and slightly rumpled in a cheap hotel room, he wears it all with the air that he’s found the proper dress code and other people are lagging a step behind. Me? I’m a Calabite. I always look like I slept in my clothes and bought the wrong fit, unless someone else dresses me. Which I try to avoid.

Our Prince might’ve just walked out of a bar fight. He’s in short sleeves with a bloody scratch down one arm, and the carpet crackles and decays beneath his feet every time he shifts his step. Which is more than I’d expect; he’s not pacing, but he’s not in some lazy static pose either. It makes me nervous.

Of course, being in the presence of a Prince makes me so utterly terrified that nervous is sort of a garnish on top. The parsley of emotional reaction to threats at hand.

The Boss turns his gaze on me, even as he’s flipping a silver coin across his fingers over and over again. “Can you play nicely with the Game?”

As questions I expect from Valefor go, this one was not high on the list. I retreat to the dubious safety of the truth. “I can pretend to.”

“Even better.” His teeth are sharper than a shark’s when he smiles, for all that I’m sure that vessel is human-shaped from skin to cells. “You two lucky pups get to team up with a pair of Players, and help them swipe someone from a Tether. Dark Humor, so I expect you to play this one fast and clean. None of us had any business in the area. Got it?”

Kidnapping is my least favorite form of literal theft. Even Zhune’s been willing to respect that. I’ll steal books and cash and artifacts and cars and, once in a while, someone’s dog. I don’t steal people. It makes me itch, right around the wrists where--it’s just not something I do.

“Got it,” I say.

“Who are we taking?” Zhune asks, because he knows what questions are safe around our Boss. (Some of them, I’m sure, are only safe when he’s the one asking.)

“One of those poker-spined Judges fell down and broke his back,” Valefor says, light and amused in a way that reminds me suddenly and uncomfortably of Julie. “The new Taker meant to join up with the Jokers, but Azzie had other plans, and this time around, we’re going to play his game. Nicely.”

There are nuances here that I can see exist and can’t interpret. Zhune will know what to do. He nods evenly beside me, already getting that slightly unfocused look of working out the details. Most of which will involve telling me what our sub-goals are, and where the traps lie, so that I can make the plans for how to reach the first and avoid the second.

“You’re expected in Sioux Falls,” says the Boss, checking the watch on his wrist, which was on Zhune’s wrist when I last noticed it five minutes ago, “in twenty-three hours, at the Thirteenth Step.” He pauses briefly, an eyebrow arched. When no questions immediately result, he ruffles my hair, claps Zhune on the shoulder, and strolls out of the room. “Have fun,” he says. And the door shuts behind him.

I let out a breath, and look at my partner. “What state is Sioux Falls in, anyway?”

“One of the Dakotas,” Zhune says.

“Twenty-three hours. Fuck. When do the snow plows come?”

“Not soon enough.” Zhune traipses across the room to where he left his jacket, his hand locked around my wrist so that I can only follow. (He’s still holding my beer. Hadn’t noticed.) A quick search of the pockets of his jacket turns up a set of keys that wasn’t there before. So the Boss is being...kind, and that makes me even more nervous. “We’re driving through the storm,” he says, and gives me back the keys along with the beer. “Maybe it’ll clear up along the way.”

“It’s probably a god damn SUV, isn’t it?”

“At least it’s not likely to be a Hummer.”

“Like those hulks can even handle snow.” I knock back the rest of the beer, and drop the bottle in the trash can. “Bring the rest of the beer along. I’m going to need it. How are we supposed to recognize these Gamesters when we get to the meet-up, anyway?”

“That won’t be a problem,” Zhune says, and his smile’s edging towards Valefor’s now. Some bastard in this room is having fun with this idea, and it’s not me. “They’ll find us.”


	2. Pawns May Not Retreat, But May Capture Diagonally en passant

There are two kinds of paperwork from Hell.

The first kind everybody gets, even when you've got a Role that fits like a second skin, with a company car and an apartment to share with your partner that's an entire pay grade better than the last time we spent this long down on Earth. We work for the government, Madeline and I. That's never changed. We work for the government in Hell and we work for the government on earth, and we do much the same thing no matter which plane of existence we're on: we find out what rules you've broken, and we ask you to stop. On earth there's usually a three-letter agency involved; in Hell that three-letter agency is spelled Mao, and she's a Marquis.

So there's paperwork. Expense reports and evaluations and requisition requests and analyses of audio transcripts of -- discussions. In triplicate, usually. Black ink, except for where the ink needs to be red. Lately I've been letting Madeline write the red-ink portions. She has a particular eloquence which is ninety percent enthusiasm, and that matters when you're justifying why you emptied a couple of one-use reliquaries during that incident with the Renegades from Lust last week. 

The other kind of paperwork from Hell comes in a clean white envelope and is slipped under the door of your office. The mark on the envelope is a grey stamp which reads PRIORITY, and the thing is blatantly, obviously, _unpleasantly_ a relic, the kind that doesn't do anything but come with you back up to Hades when you go. The other kind of paperwork from Hell is a _summons_.

Madeline brings it to me instead of lunch from the Thai place down the block. She drops it on my desk and leans over it, framing it with her hands. She's painted her nails with tiny red hearts this week. I try not to find my partner adorable; she counts on it too much. 

"You open it, Vivienne," she says.

"Is it addressed to me?"

She pouts at me, which is how I know that she's nervous about it. If she wasn't, she'd have held on to whatever was inside and told me about it at the absolute last moment before my not knowing would have screwed us both over. I can't fault her, exactly: I'd do precisely the same, and tell her to trust me besides.

She says, "It's addressed to both of us. Open it already, will you?"

I open it. There is a quarter-sheet of paper inside, with a time written on it. We have less than three hours to get ourselves down a Tether and through what will inevitably be six or seven layers of administrative protocol in order to keep the appointment which has been set for us. This is what I expected. What I don't expect -- what makes me hold onto the slip of paper as if it is the neck of a rattlesnake -- is the glyph beside the time. It is not the sigil of the Marquis Jahathanna, a familiar Horror like myself, who we nominally report to. It is an older and simpler thing. It is the name of our Prince, inscribed in a single burning eye.

"Madchen," I say, "is there anything that you've done in the past forty-eight hours which is in any way unusual or worth reporting and that I don't know about already?"

Madeline is not pouting anymore. She draws herself up, stacks vertebra on vertebra like she would in her real shape; I can almost see the flare of her wings. "Don't be accusatory if you don't mean it, Vee. It's not polite. You know me better than that."

I do, is the problem. My partner is a liar and as insane as any other Balseraph, but she'd get herself soul-killed before she'd do something that'd get her dragged before the Most Dread Prince in _disgrace_. She tried, once. I didn't let her; waste of a good partner and I've had much worse. 

The options that remain are, in decreasing order of likelihood: we have committed some sin that we don't even know about yet; we have committed some virtue that is going to result in a high-profile assignment; or someone with heavy political clout in Hades has fingered us for rulesbreaking we didn't commit and wants us to to take the fall for them. Or we're getting a present. The last is hilariously improbable, but improbability is a stupid reason to ignore a possible line of play.

I show Madeline the sigil, and she makes a noise which sounds like _eep_ and covers her mouth with both hands.

"Anything you need to finish up here?" I ask. "This is not a long time-limit."

"The Role'll maintain itself at least for a little," she says. She's positively giddy. "I'll just put up an away-on-vacation message on the email! Where do you think we ought to have gone? Can we have gone to Paris? The secretary on the fourth floor will think that's the most romantic thing ever, it's so cute, she keeps asking me when we're going to get married."

It is technically legal for our current vessels to be married in the great human state of Maryland. If we keep these Roles long enough I might even bother with it. Human rituals are a game like any game, and Madeline looks a sort of innocent in white which is a perfect contrast to everything she actually is. 

"Are you playing with the secretaries again, Madchen?"

"Only when I'm very bored," she says. "I'm not bored now."

Neither of us are bored now.

I take her hand when she comes back from instructing her email to lie to the secretaries. "Ready?" I ask. She nods, and I drop my vessel.

I follow the ever-pulling thread of my Heart down to Hades, and Madeline follows me.

* * *

Heart rooms are watched. It is simply correct policy. In other, looser realms of Hell, I have heard that it is entirely possible to observe one's Heart without anyone knowing you've done it. The idea is nearly incomprehensible. Mine is a bone-white sphere that glows the same grey as the uniforms Madeline and I are wearing here in Hades, catalogued with others that look much the same, and within the reaching claws of a Djinn that combines the most useful parts of a camel spider with the most useful parts of a rhinocerous. My Heart hums like the waterfall sound of well-shuffled cards, sings back to me every rule I know. It is good to be in my own skin again. 

I'd find a way to stay here if Madeline wasn't twined around my ankle impatiently. Her Heart is somewhere else; I've only seen it once, and that was with her wrapped around it, Traumatized, so I didn't get the best view.

"You're the one who wanted to hurry," she says. "It's a very pretty shard of your soul, I like it, come on."

I'm not entirely sure how this expedition turned into my partner leading me pel-mel down the corridors of the Heart rooms underneath the Halls of Loyalty. I could swear that I was the one who was in charge here, not half an hour ago. At some point I am going to have to reassert the correct order of things, but possibly not while we are _running_ , her tailtip caught around my wrist like a heavy onyx bangle, and dodging minor functionaries left and right.

Perhaps there's someone here Madeline wishes to avoid. I will ask her, later. Eventually she'll tell me.

We spill out onto the boulevard. The harsh, chill wind of Hades howls down it without the kindness of close-leaning buildings to mitigate its speed. I wince and wish for a scarf. If whatever is about to happen to us will involve spending appreciable time in Hell again, I am going to buy one of those tall furry hats. 

It still has not snowed. I keep thinking that this time, by the time I've found my way back into the Grey City, it will have snowed. I should know better.

Madeline's gone still beside me, all hesitance now. I tap her on the forehead, flick my nails gently against the scales between her uppermost eyes. "Something you're waiting for, partner? Now that we've run for absolutely no reason?"

Her tongue flickers up under the cuff of my sleeve and I jerk my hand back. "I'm soaking up the atmosphere, Vivienne."

"We were here four months ago."

"The atmosphere is different when you have an exit permit," she retorts. 

She has a point. The last time we were here, there were no comfortable Roles waiting for us down on the corporeal, and we were so very stuck that we actually rented an apartment from a licensed apartment-rental Lilim, like we meant to _stay_. But now we are servants of the Game in good standing, and when we trudge across the boulevard towards the Palace we might as well keep our heads up. People who approach the Palace like skittering, huddled insects -- like they're no better than the damned -- you can spot those people a mile away. They have come to plead, and to beg, and to cringe on their knees abjectly. They know they've broken the rules.

I have a summons-envelope in the inside pocket of my uniform jacket and a Balseraph of my own and if we are about to face someone else's political disaster, we certainly aren't going to let any watching eyes -- and there are always watching eyes, in the Grey City -- _know_ about it, just from looking.

The Palace is one of the few places in Hades which looks like it has emerged, hazy and overpowering, from that rumored memory of a city that evoked the first Rome rather than the third: a renaissance palazzo in white marble, scrubbed clean of smog by the hands of the damned. Guarding the door is not an important function. It is the same motion over and over again: check a demon's paperwork, check a list of approved names. It could be performed by automatons or humans. Madeline and I pass through without comment. We are within the great machine now. We traverse from little room to little room, giving our names and our service records and displaying our envelope. It is dull and it takes a long time and if you are not paying attention it will lull you into complacent expectation, so that when you finally are called to walk down the last grey hall to the last unassuming grey door, you have almost forgotten what waits for you inside.

Every Servitor of the Game on Earth sees our Dread Prince once in every month; you would think that I'd get used to it. There is no way to get used to the presence of a Demon Prince. They are worse than Wordbound. You encounter Wordbound in a commonplace way; they are dangerous and over-focused and inclined towards harm, but they are not the embodied thing that animates _you_. I serve the Game. In the presence of Asmodeus I am a tiny fragment, a single go-stone, meaningless and waiting to be employed and I can feel his regard like the vast indifference of the Hadean sky.

He wears a uniform which has inspired that worn by the chiefs of the Okhrana and the Stasi. He is always tall, and he always has narrow, chess-player's hands, and red eyes that watch, and the rest of it is changeable and not worth mentioning. I don't know what his true form looks like, and I don't know anyone who does. When I imagine it I think of spiders, and feline teeth. Madeline has told me that she thinks it must have something of a raptor, but Madeline is overly focused on creatures that swoop down and disembowel their prey.

"Lord Asmodeus," I say, and Madeline says, "My Prince," which is all one word in Helltongue.

He looks at us and his expression does not change. "Would you agree that you have shown a propensity for creative solutions to unusual situations?" he asks.

There are rhetorical questions, and then there are rhetorical questions asked by Asmodeus, which are traps like pins in a chess game: move one way, lose a piece; move the other way, lose something else.

"Yes," says Madeline, before I can qualify that with _what definition of unusual do you have in mind, most dread lord_ , which would have at least given us more information, if he chose to answer it.

"How pleasant for you," Asmodeus says. "Your next task should provide ample opportunity for a demonstration of that tendency."

Standing dumbly in front of the Game is a piss-poor strategy for surviving your monthly interrogation; we are Players as well as pieces, and one has to keep up the side. I clasp one wrist behind my back, between a para-military parade rest and a posture of deliberate arrogance, and say, "More creative or more unusual, this particular assignment?"

"The methodology ought to be familiar enough to you," says the Game, which could mean anything from our usual surveillance and interrogation technique right down to taking another trip by riverboat, which I had sworn I wouldn't do in any situation except one in which my Prince asked it of me directly. I shouldn't swear such specific oaths.

He turns to my partner. "Maddy, what do you think of Judges?"

"They're sad," says Madeline. "They want so badly to do everything right and they have absolutely no idea how. Sometimes they're right by accident and I can help them, and sometimes they are obstinate and I tell Vivienne to shoot them."

"This Judge is not sad anymore," Asmodeus. "This Judge has discovered, to his detriment, the merits of hilarity."

"I was not aware of a rule against Falling to Dark Humor," I say, which earns me the barest eyeflicker of praise.

"There is no general rule. There are specific cases where other rules take precedent."

Whatever this former Judge has done, he will wish he had not done it by the time the Game -- the Word, the Prince, either one, it blurs when I'm right next to Asmodeus -- is done with him. Specific rules are never kind. Specific rules single out specific offenses.

I say, "What is the penalty for failing to observe this rule?"

Asmodeus folds his fingers together, knuckle-on-knuckle clasped hands that should look pious or conniving and is meditative instead. "Your portion of the penalty is retrieval," he says. "In the style to which you have become so excellently accustomed. Steal him."

Madeline flares all her wings out and snaps them back in, a wriggle of delight or intense chagrin. "My Prince, are we pretending to work for Theft?"

"You'll have a sufficient supply of actual Magpies that that ruse might be somewhat crude," Asmodeus says, dry as dust, "but if you find your creativity bending in that direction, I wouldn't forbid it out of hand."

"How many Thieves?" I ask.

"Two. Valefor has promised me a pair of Tether experts. You're bound for Sioux Falls. Preliminary intelligence has the Judge held in the Tether to Dark Humor there. You'll join up with the Servitors of Theft in a minor jazz club entitled the Thirteenth Step."

Someone in Sioux Falls has an atrocious sense of humor. On evidence, _lots_ of someones. "Where's the drop-off?" I say.

"Vivienne," my Prince tells me, "I see you will have no trouble thinking like a mobile scavenger that feasts on the refuse of Hell. Once you claim your prize he should be delivered to the Vegas Tether."

"Yes, my lord," I say, and start thinking logistics rather than thinking about how Asmodeus thinks I would make a decent Thief myself. Con _one_ group of Technologist smugglers -- and I did it for the service of my Word, I would never do otherwise -- Sioux Falls to Las Vegas. I hope to Lucifer that the Magpies have a car. Or will steal a car. I will make the Magpies steal a car for me, and then I will make them drive it at my direction.

"What do we do with the Magpies?" asks Madeline. "Afterward, I mean."

Asmodeus can look amused by raising one eyebrow one eighth of an inch. "Catch and release. If appropriate. I am sure Valefor will want them back in approximately the same shape as he loaned them out." He pauses. "Don't get caught," he says.

I am angry, and I am terrified, and I love my Prince like I love the Grey City, and so I say, "How very Valeforian of you to say, my Lord," and wait to see if I am going to keep all my Forces.

What I get is a split-second of a smile. "Quite," Asmodeus says. "Would Gamesters resort to kidnapping and petty theft? Of course not."

I repeat, "Of course not," and bow from the hip; every possible respect given. Pin any necessary blame on the Thieves. I can do that.

We are dismissed with a fractional wave of his hand.

"Only when we're pretending to be something we aren't," says my partner in the hallway outside. "The trick to being a spy, remember, Vee?"

How could I forget a rule I taught Madeline myself? "Naturally I remember."

"I wonder who else does," Madeline says, and refuses to elaborate while we're still within the walls of the Palace, even when I threaten -- she merely closes the nictitating membrane over her eyes, triple-blink indifference, and hurries me along to the tiny Tether locus that will spit us out in South Dakota.

* * *

It is snowing on the other side.

I cannot remember why I wanted this to happen.


	3. Each Player Is Limited To Table Stakes

The Thirteenth Step is narrow and deliberately dim, a collection of two-person tables and curved booths in maroon leather that crowd up to an antique wooden bar and a small stage that ought to have a band on it and doesn't. There should be smoke drifting between the reddish table lamps, but some human has instituted an indoor smoking ban. Nevertheless there are far more people in this bar than I'd expect for barely seven in the evening on a Tuesday in February in the middle of a snowstorm.

Then again, considering how thankful I am to be inside the bar instead of freezing in the street, perhaps I should revise my expectations. 

There are no immediate candidates for our erstwhile companions. The clientele are mostly Caucasian, mostly between the apparent ages of twenty and forty, as much as humans show their ages by facial wear and dress style, and nearly all of them have drinks. Some have acquired small plates of bar food. Pretzels. Dessicated peanuts dusted with mysterious spice.

Behind me, in the same little black dress and little black blazer she was wearing back in our office in an entirely different climate, my partner murmurs in my ear, "What do Tether experts look like, you think?"

"Let's play what's-unusual and find out," I say. 

"Not the bartender," says Madeline. The bartender is a middle-aged man with a gentle paunch and a stubbled head, black shirt and black pants to hide drink stains; he suits the bar too well to be a Thief.

Aside from the name of this place, and the fact that it is a jazz club in South Dakota -- even if the jazz band itself is currently pre-recorded and piped in via speaker system -- there isn't much unusual about the Thirteenth Step, or at least what of it can be seen from the threshhold. We are blocking the door. I can still feel the cold outside leaking in through the heavy glass.

"Well," I say. "If the bartender is in fact a bartender, I am going to get us drinks."

"I want a drink with an umbrella," Madeline informs me. 

"You always want a drink with an umbrella," I say.

"That's because drinks with umbrellas taste better."

I do not agree. If I tell Madeline I don't agree, I will end up agreeing, and ordering pina coladas all night. It has happened before. There are many wonderful things about having a Balseraph for a partner, but being allowed to order vodka in peace is not one of them.

The bartender sizes me up and determines that I am barely within his parameters for an acceptable customer. I have abandoned my suit -- it is folded up in my briefcase and will need to be ironed later -- and acquired through circumstances too unbelievably frustrating to mention, a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, but there is no human on the Corporeal for whom I will undye my vessel's hair unless I am pretending to be someone much more not who I am. Bartenders in the deep midwest disapprove of women with red mouths and white spiked hair, but not enough to refuse me a double shot of vodka and a Blue Hawaiian.

I drink the vodka like we did in Leningrad. One shot. One breath. The other shot. Then I watch the bartender spend a while locating pineapple juice.

I am at least warmer now. If we ever get assigned to this part of the continent for longer than one mission, I am asking for a vessel that doesn't feel the cold.

The cocktail umbrella in the Blue Hawaiian has a tiny saxophone on it. Adorable. I pay the bartender, collect Madeline's ridiculous drink, and turn around to hand it to my partner -- who has mysteriously vanished. 

She has a reason, I'm sure. She usually does. Sometimes it's even a brilliant one. On the other hand, she's left me holding her drink. I perch on a barstool, tuck my ankles around the footrest, and look through the crowd for either a small Japanese woman in black or something that Valefor would have sent to frustrate and deceive upstanding citizens of Hell.

The humans come in pairs, female-and-male on dates; or trios and quartets, all of one gender. I try to pick up the rules for how they stand, what drinks they order. The men like beer, or whiskeys. The women, beer and Cosmopolitans and in one case, something that looks like it contains a copious amount of tequila and orange juice. They are loud and they are comfortable with this place; it is likely a local standby. I drop my shoulders and sag from the lower belly, spine curved like I don't know how to hold still at attention or crawl onto a windowsill to position a camera scope. When I get it right I can feel their eyes stop catching on me. It's easier to watch them when they aren't noticing they're being watched.

I spot the Magpies because the larger one is ostentatious like a smug designer-breed cat. One of the large ones that should have been wildcats and still look the part, all long legs and tearlines down the muzzle, pleased with themselves. It isn't that he's wearing something the humans aren't: half the men in this bar are in jeans and button-downs. It's that he couldn't resist having the most expensive set of the things in a fifty-mile radius.

In the booth next to him is a tiny redhead in a beat-up plaid top and jeans that look about two minutes away from dissolving under the wear-pressure of the atmosphere. Calabite, by the look of her.

Between them they have drunk at least six beers.

I wait.

They're casing the room, but without specific targets that I can spot. Just a gentle, instinctive sweep. They look like any couple in this place, or would if their outfits matched -- Theft is terrible with training operatives to do anything but take what they want, correct infiltration protocol is beyond them. Either they have as little information about who they're meeting as I do, or they're playing some deeper angle and waiting for us to move first. Waiting puts them in the position of being courted, which is unsuitable. If I walk over to them I am declaring that I want their company. Better to make them come to me. I could stay here at the bar, put back on my proper way of standing and moving, and see if one of them is clever or knowledgeable enough to spot a Gamester halfway across a crowded room. If they fail, then I will have another drink and wait until they're frustrated and hungry for contacts and then give them what they think they want.

A door opens in the back of the empty stage, and a bunch of humans carrying instruments come out of it. They plug in microphones and amplifiers and arrange themselves amidst the unpleasant noise of instrument tuning. The piped-in jazz cuts off with a crackle of static. The Magpies look up -- the Calabite at least has high alert to sound trained into her, and I can't tell about the other one, he could be pretending to be unperturbed by everything. (A Horror like myself? The vessel is Balseraphic but not as narrow as most Balseraphs prefer. Impudite, with the clothing he likes --)

My partner has situated herself in the middle of the musicians like a chanteuse in a film noir, curved over the microphone like she could envelop it in the leather of her true form's wings. She looks out at the bar. She looks over to me. She _grins_ , wicked and sly, and raises a hand, and says into that mic: "I convinced these nice young men to help me sing all you people a song. I'm sure you'll like it. I do."

By the time I notice that Madeline has changed the plan, it is almost always too late to do anything about it. There are moments where all I want to do with that woman is take her back to Hades and resonate her happy enough that she won't surprise me for at least a week. Until I get tired of her not surprising me again.

The band swings into a folk melody over a syncopated, jaunty guitar, and by the time the saxophone and the drums kick in I know _precisely_ what song Madeline's picked out. It's an old one. It's as close to native art as the Grey City's ever gotten.

She's picked the verse that'll make the Magpies flinch.

_Every little penny in the wishing well, every little nickel on the drum,_ she sings, breathless and smoky and having enough fun for both of us, _all them shiny little heads and tails, where d'you think they come from? They come from --_

There's a pause right before the next line, and I almost come in with the rest of the band on instinct. She's taught a jazz ensemble of humans to do call-and-response. I am delighted and horrified all at once. They sing, _way down Hadestown, way down under the ground_ \--

I tear myself away from watching Madeline to have the pleasure of watching the Magpies watch her instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Maddy's picked out is [_Way Down Hadestown_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcZPTp-F0nE), from Anais Mitchell's brilliant concept album _Hadestown_ , which I advise you listen to for added verisimilitude!


	4. In Which Either We Are Meeting Gamesters Or Dark Humor Is Punking Us, Not Real Sure Which

We’re too far north to order any kind of decent barbecue, and I am freezing my hands off in here. That’s what happens when we’re sent to meet people in South Dakota, which is one of those states that exists on the map purely to take up space between more interesting places. Zhune’s complete confidence in the Game finding us first isn’t making me feel any better, either. I’m used to those sorts of encounters ending in blood and screaming and explosions.

Well. An explosion wouldn’t be so bad. Those, I know what to do with them. There’s a purity of purpose to running and screaming and bleeding while everything is on fire that’s hard to capture while sitting and waiting for people who don’t like us to come say hello.

“Relax,” Zhune says. He’s reached that sort of good cheer that worries me, and should worry other people. I am realizing that he enjoys dealing with the Game in exactly the same way that he enjoys dealing with angels.

This should worry _them_ , but they’re unlikely to know better. It should reassure me, but it doesn’t. The last thing I want on this job is my partner fucking around with other people to amuse himself. Plenty of time for that on all the other jobs, where of course he’s the pure professional with plenty of constructive criticism for me any time I deviate from the optimum solution to the problem at hand.

Probably I shouldn’t have three beers already, at that. Because it does nothing good for my thinking. Just enough alcohol in my system that I’m not at my absolute sharpest, not enough that it acts as a reminder for me to be careful. But damned if I’m going into this meeting stone cold sober and freezing both. One or the other, and here I am without a decent jacket.

“I’m perfectly relaxed,” I tell Zhune. “Hey, I have an idea for how to meet up with them. All I need is ten minutes in the bathroom and a lighter--”

“No,” Zhune says.

“Okay. So how about you convince the bartender to--”

“No, Leah,” Zhune says.

“Plan C requires a phone. Do you have one on you?”

“Yes,” Zhune says. “And you can’t use it for whatever you have in mind. This goes double if it involved calling the police.”

“I don’t _always_ call the police.” I slouch down further in booth, and watch musicians begin setup at the stage. They’re quick to move towards sound checks. Oh, yes, amplifiers are what I want at my back tonight. Live music will surely improve this evening, in much the way air conditioning would improve my experience at this bar. “Sometimes I call the fire department instead.”

“We’re being good,” Zhune murmurs. “We are being...polite. Surely even you can be polite, Leah.” It’s never a good sign when he starts using my name (and that’s not even _my_ name) repeatedly. But what is a good sign with Zhune these days?

Maybe a distraction for him, and someone new for him to toy with, would do us both a little good. I could use the breathing space.

The band’s singer steps up to the mike to announce the first song. Spot The Band says she’s short for a Balseraph, but has the right way of putting hands around what she wants to hold for one of that kind. Pretty enough for an Impudite, too intent for a Djinn, the eyes aren’t right for Shedim. (I don’t know how other people can’t spot Shedim. More obvious than Calabim, those ones, except for a few of the subtlest.) There’s a man with a guitar behind her that I’d peg as an Ofanite, if I had to tag him for anything, but human’s more likely all around. Just like the bartender isn’t a Calabite (though I think he’d like to be, if he knew what one was), and that couple at the next table isn’t a pair of Habbalah, only two humans with the right way of cutting at each other with words to convince someone a bit more ignorant that they are.

That’s the problem with games like this. Squint at any human long enough, and you can convince yourself they’re a celestial of one kind or another. It’s the flipside of all us celestials pretending to be human. Hard to tell where the line is, if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

The band (uncapitalized version) kicks into a melodic line I last heard in Shal-Mari. Another version of it, so I can almost convince myself that it’s some other song entirely until the singer begins.

_Every little penny in the wishing well, every little nickel on the drum..._

“Hey. John.” I lean in over the table, elbows propped around two empty beer glasses. (The service here is not great. They’re happy to serve and slow to clear, and I’m beginning to reconsider my generous tipping policy.) “How steady are you on the part about not setting anything on fire?”

“Steady as stone,” Zhune says, a hint of mocking drawl to how he spins out that sentence. He can play at a complete lack of tension, but I know the signs by now. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if a pack of Jokers intercepted something along the way, this could get _really_ exciting soon. Or, worse yet, not so soon.”

He thinks this over, fingers drumming briefly on the table. The singer’s got a great voice for the sound, far better than Elektra had when she hit these lines. _Mister Hades, he’s a mean old man..._ “Would the plan with the lighter reliably sort out everyone by Word?”

“...maybe?”

“Maybe isn’t good enough,” Zhune says. “Who’s our second?”

“Do we care who wins the staring contest?” I ask, and when he shakes his head, turn sideways to look for who’s looking at us.

Now that I’m watching, feels like the answer should’ve been obvious. Came into the bar not too long ago, check, but that’s not the key. And the part where she’s watching us--waiting for the response, I’d say, which is one way to pick out the people in the crowd who are paying attention, and Thieves who don’t pay attention don’t _last_ \--well, that’s just the answer now. The key’s in the short white hair and stark black clothing, the red splash at her mouth that’s human-acceptable makeup but makes me think of blood and sharp teeth.

The Game is all black and white on the outside, gray on the inside. Sharp as knives and rules held like them for others, and endless arbitrary clauses and loopholes for themselves. (I would say “Judgment is more honest” but I’m not always sure that’s true.) This one’s not bothering to look like she couldn’t take anyone in the room who came at her.

Spot The Band says not a Calabite, because she’s too sharp-edged for them, but then I remember Chaixin, and I’m not so damn sure. Even so, it doesn’t matter yet. _Not sure_ can cover a lot, and I would not put it past the Game to send us a Lilim. It’s what I would do in a situation like this.

I wait for eye contact to catch, and wait. (Every former Renegade knows that running draws attention, and there is no reason for us to run. We have as much reason to be here as they do.) Set as stone, as much as Zhune suggested, while she makes her way through the room towards us. She’s not an Impudite, I’m sure of that much. The wrong sort of walk. Arrogance comes in as many flavors as fear or cheer, and hers isn’t the right kind for a Taker. They pay more attention to humans as pretty useful things, even while they move around them, and not only as mobile, chatty obstacles that should not be walked over directly unless no better route presents itself.

She slides into the booth beside me like we’ve been waiting for her. Which we have, so I put on a pleasant smile that some people will be inclined to read as defensive. “If I’d known you were bringing a whole jazz band,” I say to her, “I could’ve picked up a corsage on the way, to make it fair.”

“Only the singer belongs to me. But don't let me forbid you from presenting small tokens of your regard,” says the Gamester, who is sitting closer to me than I find comfortable. (Where would I find comfortable? I don’t know. The other side of bulletproof glass, maybe. Or at least with a table between us.) She speaks like someone who is used to being listened to, and not in the sense of a fair number of American men, who have a casual distracted confidence they haven’t earned. More like she lays the emphasis across her words with the expectation that those she’s speaking to will be paying close attention to the implied nuance.

I spread my hands open between stray napkins on the table. “I knew I forgot to pick up something.” The song’s still humming along, trying to pull my attention away from the people near me to the one with the rhyming lines. Better to let Zhune keep an eye on that, no matter how much I find the music distracting. It’s easier to tune out music I’ve never heard. “Maybe I’ll remember on the second date.”

“Aren't you optimistic about your future prospects,” she says. “I assume it's a better starting point than recalcitrance or foot-dragging.”

“Give us a little credit,” I say, and do not mention the possibility of taking it otherwise. Best not to assume the Game has any sense of humor whatsoever.

“Exactly as much as you deserve.”

Zhune could step in _any time now_ , thanks, but he’s gone quiet and a bit more Djinnish. Not the full on slouch and heavy stare that he plays up when he wants to say Hello, Stalker Here, to the whole world, but he is refusing to throw me a rope. I must remember that my partner’s favorite way to play games is by throwing out bait and seeing what bites. And bait is usually me.

The song’s winding to a close, thank all that’s unholy. I fight back any impulse to go for the sharp smile, and shrug instead. “Wouldn’t be much fun to skip out on a job like this, would it? I mean, what kind of foot-dragging do you expect? ‘Gosh, no, let’s not get to work, there are _so many things_ to do in Sioux Falls first.’” And I shut up while the Gamester with the song introduces the band, because that means--yes, we’re getting Player Number Two joining the table next.

Player Number One arches one perfect eyebrow. “Well, what did you expect from a town where the major Tether belongs to Comedians? _Entertainment_?”

“If their humor was any fun,” I say, and then leave that sentence unfinished as the singer drops down into the booth beside Zhune. Nice as it is to have a solid wall at my back--especially knowing that it can become a much less solid if need be--the part where they’ve bracketed us off from the rest of the bar is such a blatant power play it’s a little insulting. No, they’re really not giving us any credit at all.

"Hi! I'm Maddy.” Player Number Two has an impossibly adorable name to go with the way she smiles, and if she’s not a Balseraph, she’s got to be Impudite. Lilim on the absolute outside. “Vee, won't you do introductions? I'm _so_ sorry I missed them, I was busy."

If anyone here starts calling me Lee, I am going to bite someone.

Player Number One looks slightly put upon, but not in a way I entirely believe. "Madchen, this is the talkative Magpie, and this is the not-talkative Magpie.” One economical hand gesture towards each of us, in case the designations weren’t clear otherwise. “Magpies, this is my partner, Madeline, and I'm Vivienne."

There is a cadence to how she says _Magpie_ that suggests it’s considered more of a slur where she comes from than it is in Stygia. Can’t say I’m all that surprised.

My partner doesn’t so much raise a hand as lift a few of his fingers from the glass of beer he’s holding. “Zhune,” he says, and points with two of those fingers to me. “Leah.”

So it’s going to be like that, isn’t it? Well. If he wanted to run this show, he could’ve spoken up properly when he had the chance. “I’m sure the pleasure is all ours,” I say brightly to Maddy who is Madchen who is Madeline, and smile with only a little show of teeth. Virtually none.

“Almost all,” says Madeline, smiling right back at me with a rather impressive imitation of sincerity, “but we could improve from here.”

The jazz band has started up some musical number that I assume is real jazz, and the noise is making my head hurt. Bars are great places to get drunk and terrible places for conversations. (The fact that I had an extended chat with Sean in a bar once only confirms that assessment, as far as I’m concerned.) “That’s always a possibility. How about we ditch this place and get the party started somewhere quieter? We have a place set up already.”

Zhune’s too much of a professional to glare at me, but not so sanguine about the way I just offered our emergency backup hotel room to not kick my foot under the table. Maybe he should be chattier if he wants to make these sorts of decisions.

“Excellent,” says Vee who is Vivienne, so there’s no real backing out now.

“But I didn’t get a drink,” begins Madeline, and she gets about as far with that as I would.

“You sang an entire song instead. Perhaps Leah and Zhune will have selected a hotel with a minibar.”

Madeline pouts, which tips the scale back towards Impudite slightly. And then they stand up together, opening up that particular less destructive escape option (if walking past a Gamester ever constitutes an “escape”) with a sort of casual synchronicity that I can’t help but admire. These two have worked together long enough to have old arguments and standard moves.

That makes them more dangerous, but also--probably--more competent. The two generally do go hand in hand.

Zhune offers his current glass of beer, still two thirds full, to Madeline with an air of faint amusement. I just get out of the damn booth.

While it’s not as if we would actually try to poison them--I mean, not under these exact circumstances--I’m still a little surprised when Madeline tries the beer she’s been offered, before handing it back. “Not bad, but I like darker beers,” she says.

I hold up the ring of car keys on one finger, and address Vivienne, who is not busy delivering beverage critiques. “Need an address, or a ride?”

"We'll take your car. I assume you'll drive." She says this as if it’s natural and expected for us to chauffeur the Game around.

...she says this, come to think of it, as if she doesn’t have a car. Which. Really? They came to the bar expecting us to provide transport? I’m not sure if I’m more impressed by the audicity or surprised by the lack of preparation. _I_ wouldn’t let a Magpie I’d never met drive me around in a car I didn’t know to an address no one had told me for a nice quiet talk about a joint project, and I’m _with_ Theft. More or less.

“So long as you’re not going to check the vehicle registration too closely,” I say, heading for the door that will let us out into the deathly cold parking lot that’s probably covered in snow again already, “I’m willing to drive.”

Zhune slips the keys from my hand. “I’ll drive,” he says.

Probably I should argue, because a car crash never improves anyone’s day. But it’s the Game that’ll be riding with us, and I just can’t bear to pass up the opportunity to let them experience Zhune’s driving. In the snow. “Whatever you like,” I say to him, with a sweet smile like we get along perfectly in every way.

Probably the Game doesn’t buy that in the slightest. But that’s fine. They can think what they want about me and Zhune. I know what we can actually pull off, given half a chance.

(And it doesn’t matter who wants to give us a chance or not. We do, in fact, take them ourselves.)


	5. The Side Which Bids Highest Must Win That Number Of Tricks

We are not letting Zhune drive again. This is my first rule about the remainder of this assignment.

The ride the Thieves have procured is a large pickup truck with a full-size cab, dull white, and liberally covered in snow. On approach, the Calabite -- Leah -- had regarded it with resigned distaste, and fastened her seatbelt immediately upon entrance, which said something in and of itself. 

After the second swerve around a snowbank, I buckled Madeline's seatbelt _for_ her and hung on to the handle on the ceiling for fear of losing my vessel by being thrown through the windshield, and spent the rest of the drive certain that Leah was making an extremely obvious point, perhaps in payback for being sung at and surrounded.

One-one. Our partners are insane, in useful ways. 

The hotel, in contrast to the car, is entirely suitable. Madeline and I take a room across from the one the Magpies have already procured, and meet them inside theirs. Leah offered the space; it is as good as an invitation. 

They've got a single king-size bed -- that's a point of information all on its own -- and no visible luggage. The blackout curtains are pushed back and the inner gauze ones drawn. There's nothing unusual about the room as a room; beige carpet, mass-produced but upscale photorealistic landscape painting over the bed, uncomfortable-looking couch and chair and desk. The sort of hotel room a man on a business trip would rent, but which wouldn't look out of place for a man and his girlfriend for the weekend.

Zhune leans on the console with its television and minibar, as elegant standing still as he is incompetent at driving, and watches us file in. When we go past him -- and we have to, to be in the room properly -- he will be between us and the door. There are no other exits; I don't consider third-floor windows to be exits worth counting. I wonder if the Calabite, sprawled on the bed on her back like the five minutes wait between our checking in and our arrival here was an eternity of boredom, thinks of windows differently.

"Oh good!" says Madeline, brushing past me and sidling up to Zhune -- and I am still unsure of his Band, but Balseraph is less and less likely, Madeline hasn't yet reacted like a hostile kitten -- "you _do_ have a minibar. I think we should have a drink while we talk. So that there can be toasts afterward. For teamwork."

Straight-faced, I say, "Team-building serves the cause of Hell," and wave Madeline on. The chair by the desk is empty. I spin it around and sit in it backward. Across from me, Leah's pushed herself up to sitting.

"And team-building drinks always help me work more efficiently in service to the cause," she says, with enough sincerity that I know she lies a great deal, to a great many people. 

"Ritual matters," I say, and take my drink from my partner. She's made screwdrivers, and she hands them off one by one: to Zhune by the bar, to me, and lastly to Leah on the bed, taking the opportunity to perch next to her, crosslegged on the mattress.

She raises her glass. "To the everlasting glory of the Game," she says.

"And to not getting caught," I add -- and drink.

By the time I've put my glass down, Zhune is across the room, a liquid-quick motion that I _should_ have expected, and Leah no longer has a drink in her hands. Zhune takes one ostentatious sip from his -- just enough for propriety's sake, so as to not turn down the toast -- and puts both glasses down on the windowsill behind him, out of Leah's reach.

I am revising my opinion of which Magpie is in control of this partnership. I am revising it very strongly.

"Now then," I say, as if nothing has happened. "We have a target to retrieve."

"One extremely former Judge," says Leah, bright and blithe like her partner has not just completely undercut her in front of near-strangers, "What sort of details did you bring to share with the class?"

I truly do not like playing with this weak of a hand. The Magpies are behaving as if we two Players are possessed of the panopticon eyes of all the Grey City, and know everything -- but the eyes of the Game are _collective_ and we only know what small pieces Asmodeus decided were useful for us to know, in order that we will follow the line of play he has designated as correct. Which means bluffing in front of Thieves, apparently.

"One extremely former Judge who ought to have ended up in Hades," I say, and smile, folding my fingers together like my Prince would. "And who instead has shown a remarkable level of poor judgment -- as it were -- and landed himself in a Dark Humor Tether, where he remains under guard."

"After we get him we're taking him to Vegas," Madeline adds.

"Also that," I say. 

"If he had shown good judgment, he wouldn't have two Words showing up to shove him in the trunk of a car." Only Leah is talking. Zhune stands behind her and lets her unspool at me and watches _my_ reactions, not his partner's, all cool control. I think, abruptly and with certainty, _Djinn_. Uncommon in Theft, from my experience, and the vessel doesn't suggest it -- but then neither do Asmodeus's vessels, and the Game is Djinn enough that all us Gamesters echo it, even those of us who are angels serving in Hell. 

"-- or the back seat, depending," Leah goes on, "too many cars have those safety release latches on the inside these days."

"We wouldn't want that," Madeline interrupts earnestly, which I'm thankful for, I am beginning to think that Leah will in fact talk until someone stops her, "then we'd have to catch him all over again, and if he isn't in a Tether anymore _you_ won't be as helpful, and there might be humans, and he'll just go to ground if there are humans. _That_ doesn't change when you make an Impudite out of a Mercurian."

Leah seems mildly puzzled, whether at the insinuation that she and her partner are only as good for what they've been advertised to do or at the idea of dealing with humans as a hazard -- let _her_ work in government surveillance for a year or two and see what she thinks of humans -- but all she says is, "Humans are easy. And once we catch him, we should be able to find him again." Little breezy hand-gesture, and that confirms the Band of her partner, doesn't it? "Did they give you a description, or do we need to play Who's The Impudite with Tether personnel through exciting process of elimination?"

I say, "Our intelligence has provided a last-known vessel description, yes," and then I pause, just to see if I can get Leah to ask me for it outright. I think I am playing into Zhune's hands, letting Leah talk as much as she wants to and allowing him to just observe us, but going along with someone else's currently-innocuous long-term strategy is a valid starting point --

"Gosh," says Leah, "I'm glad that's covered!"

"I _know_ ," Madeline gushes, "isn't it useful? Just think how annoying checking out everyone in the Tether would be. You'd get so bored. I'd get so bored."

Leah says, "Fortunately, with a picture, this is simple. We can set the Tether on fire and just watch for the right person to run out." The suggestion is entirely cheerful, as if grand arson is in fact her standard modus operandi.

"No, Leah," says Zhune, with the merest hint of longsuffering.

"Oh, too bad," Madeline chimes in, Lucifer help me and her both, "I've never done a target search like that before."

"No, Madeline," I say, before I realize that I have just echoed Zhune exactly.

I catch the Djinn's eyes, raising one eyebrow just a fraction. He gives me back the faintest widening of eyes, wry. I can work with this, I think.

By the time I look back to Leah and Madeline, I realize that they're sharing an equivalent expression of sympathy, and the shape of this assignment begins coming clear to me. If I can just keep Madeline within _useful_ operating parameters -- she's never _incorrect_ but her versions of correct are sometimes antithetical to any sort of health and safety standard -- then we'll run this like a double con, one Thief for each of us. 

"Ruling out arson," I say, "and other methods of tipping our hand early, I do suggest some surveillance as a preliminary form of investigation."

Leah nods, sharp agreement. "Exactly. You two should handle preliminary surveillance. Less likely to run into old friends who make for awkward conversations." The shift from casual to on-point is striking; whatever else this Calabite is, she is not lacking Ethereal Forces. They are both dangerous, her and her partner -- Valefor wouldn't have sent them otherwise. They are at least as dangerous as Madeline and I. It wouldn't be an interesting game if one side was overmatched immediately.

I make a go-on gesture. Leah obliges, with a brisk sort of confidence that makes me think that, no matter who precisely is in charge of their partnership, she is the one who makes the plans. "We'll pick up the usual data on the facilities tomorrow. Would've had it already, except for the short notice. How long will it take you to manage surveillance? We can swap to a meet-up location nearer the Tether if you need extra time."

I refuse to be insulted; it's what the Magpie wants me to feel, and only I get to make people feel emotions that aren't theirs. "A twenty-four hour sweep should tell us more than we need to know. We can do it in twelve, since you're on that necessary time limit."

That gets me a laugh from Leah. Arrogant or confident, or somewhere in between. "If this takes us more than three days to pull off, something's gone pear-shaped." I wonder how often things have gone pear-shaped for her. Not often enough that she's concerned. "This job kinda contraindicates the risk of hitting government offices unless we're in a hurry, which we're _not_ , so we'll pick up the data tomorrow. Meet up at six?" 

"Six is good," says Madeline. "We'll be here. Waiting outside your door! Or inside, depending on who gets back first." She grins. I think she has just challenged a Servitor of Theft to a security contest. This is going to be a very interesting week.

"Inside is fine. More comfortable than waiting in the hall," Leah says. The way she smiles at my partner is half _gambit accepted_ and half wary evaluation. I'd be surprised if she went for whatever Madeline is offering wholeheartedly, at this point; she's smart and she's a Thief, and she knows how our Words feel about one another.

Her next question is for me. "For reference, either of you any good at winning hearts and minds? That's not usually our gig."

Either she hasn't come to a satisfactory conclusion about the nature of our Bands, or she's asking a technical question about resonance usage and efficacy. The first option is the safe one to answer: efficacy of resonance is not the sort of tactical information one divulges to cross-Word partners, even cooperative ones. (Both Madeline and I are effective enough to be a problem for most smaller demons, and I am not entirely sure that Madeline goes under for anything less than a Wordbound -- or me. She'll let me take care of her because she knows she should.) 

I answer the safer question, either way. "Both of us," I say. I gesture to Madeline on the bed. "Balseraph," and to myself, "and Habbalite." I smile with all of my teeth, the way I smile in Hell. "Look at us, a balanced party."

"Useful spread." And that's Zhune, not Leah. Leah's not saying anything, and Zhune is visibly smug, the way satisfied Djinn are smug. I am reminded again of the designer-breed cats. I would put money on his celestial form being partially feline. 

I wonder which one of us is the unpleasant surprise, for Leah: that the charming creature on the bed next to her is a Liar, or that I'm an angel?

"I'm not displeased," I say. "Is there anything else you need to know? Or want to share?"

Leah's recovered herself enough to spread her hands in a shrug. "It's enough to start. Should be able to nail down all the details tomorrow evening." She looks over at her Djinn; it's the first overt check-in between them that I've spotted. She must be actually shaken. I am beginning to think that amongst the investigation we will be conducting in the next twelve hours, we ought to take out a bit of time to get some background on our compatriots. 

Zhune doesn't intervene. He doesn't seem to intervene _much_. 

"Lovely meeting you and all that," Leah says. "Unless you have lingering questions, let's call it a night."

I let Madeline answer for us. "We'll see you tomorrow," she says. There's just the threat of a blown kiss in her tone. "Have fun!"

She hops off the bed and comes to stand by me; I let my hand rest on her shoulderblade, proprietary-pleased, and then we leave the Magpies to themselves.

It's only when we get back across the hall to our hotel room that I realize she's walked off with one of their highball glasses, and for that, I let her kiss me.


	6. In Which It Is A Good Thing Minimal Crockery Is Present

Zhune tidies up the glasses left behind, empty and otherwise. “The Liar swiped one,” he says, sounding entirely amused, and offers me the drink he took from me earlier. “Maybe we’re a bad influence on them already.”

Once upon a time I would’ve accepted that drink he’s holding out to me, like it’s some sort of apology. I’m in no such mood right now. I remove the glass, and leave him with a handful of juice and alcohol. Sticky, though sadly unlikely to stain the cuffs of his shirt. “What the fuck was that about?”

“That,” he says, as he heads to the sink to wash his hand off, “was strategy. I realize you’re very fond of tactical maneuvering, Leah, but it can’t always--”

“That was something I could have _worked_ with,” I say, entirely aware of how much I sound like a surly teenager, “if you’d give me thirty seconds of warning! During, I don’t know, the _entire drive_ over here. You want to play like you’re holding the reins, I can work with that. I can totally stand behind your delicate sense of hierarchies and your place within them, if that’s what you want. Assuming you _tell_ me.”

“You over-correct when you have warning.” Zhune strips off his shirt, and spreads it out across the sink to rinse its cuffs clean. “The reaction is more convincing when it’s authentic, especially when you’re trying to cover up for it. We’re not playing against someone like Death or the War on this one, Leo. The Game pays attention.”

I’m standing in the middle of the room, and I would like to kick something. Or set it on fire. Maybe the one followed by the other. I settle for destroying all of the glasses still left in the room, one after another, regardless of what’s left within. “We’re not _playing_ against anyone, Zhune. We’re doing a job. We are professionals, and why do we even care what these people think of us? The job’s straight-forward, and it’s on _their_ behalf, so unless they’re idiots--or we’re being set up, in which case we are thoroughly fucked, because it’s by our Prince if so--all we need to do is fulfill the letter of the contract and call it a day. Their opinion of us is not _relevant_.”

“We’re not being set up,” Zhune says, mild and soothing, like this is supposed to make me feel better. “I’ve been through that enough times to recognize it. Relax.”

The painting falls off the wall behind me, and shatters across the bed.

“If you want to throw a tantrum,” Zhune says, “I can leave you to it. Should I pick up more beer while I’m out?”

If I had anything in hand, I would throw it at him. But I don’t have so much as a watch on me, _again_ , thank you very much, partner who goes through my pockets whether I catch him at it or not. “How about you cross the hall and make nice with the Gamesters? You might find it _entertaining_. You certainly know how to play with them, with or without my help.”

He crosses the space between us to slide his arms around me. It is not an embrace, though an outside perspective might mistake it for such. “You know better,” he says mildly, and if that were an apology--

But it’s never an apology from my partner. I don’t think he knows how to make one, though he’s good at conciliatory presents and soothing remarks when he thinks it’s time to talk me back down.

“Maybe I should know better than to expect you to not be an asshole,” I say, “given who we’re working with. Do you want to give any warning about plans for tomorrow evening? Or will those be another delightful surprise?”

He drags his hands up my back, across these terrible clothes he stuffed me into, and ruffles my hair. “Leah. You’re doing fine. Focus on the work, and I’ll take care of everything else.”

“This isn’t fine. This is you undercutting me--”

“Like you said.” Zhune interrupts me so sweetly and lightly, one hand resting in my hair. “It doesn’t matter what they think of us, does it? So why are you fussing over it? And don’t I know how to deal with the Game? If you’re under the impression I’m making some mistake, we can talk about it.”

I take a few breaths, because biting my partner doesn’t help. Even if I manage to connect, which generally doesn’t help. What did I tell Guo about this, in a city buried in rain instead of snow? Slow, deep breaths. It lets you think more clearly.

“We don’t have the leeway to fuck with them, Zhune.” There. Straightforward and logical argument, which I can actually defend. “We’re working with the Game. _With_ , not against, no matter what our, uh, opportunities for complicating matters might be. So for once, let’s not complicate it. Let’s get the job done, and not harass them or mess with their heads or anything. Let’s just do the job.”

“This is part of doing the job,” Zhune says. “Trust me, Leah. I know what I’m doing.”

I pull away--he doesn’t stop me, which is something--and flop down onto the bed, amidst glass shards. “You could stop calling me that _any time_ , Zhune. I have a name.”

“It’s lousy security to use a name that doesn’t match your vessel,” he says. “People are more likely to notice.”

I check out the ceiling. It hasn’t changed from what it was like half an hour ago. “If anyone’s eavesdropping on our conversations, I’m pretty sure it’s not the part they’d pay the most attention to.” An unpleasant thought wanders through my mind. “Do you think they are?”

“Bugging the place? No. I would’ve noticed.” He moves back to the sink, and I stare at the ceiling, listening to his feet on the carpet instead of watching him. The fact that I can hear where he’s moving is indicative of a certain type of courtesy. When he wants to mess with me in a different way, he can move without any sound or warning. “Stop worrying, Leah.”

“Leo.”

He moves back into my field of vision. Shirt back on, unbuttoned, looking like he’s walked out of an action movie. I never look like that. “Leah, you’re being petty about the most inconsequential details.” He sits down beside me, brushing glass out of his way. “Besides, it’ll make the Players feel better when they work out what your other name is, while they’re doing their research on us tomorrow.”

“You think they’ll do that?”

“I would be disappointed in them if they didn’t.”

“And here I thought we didn’t care what they felt like.”

There is a curve of a smile on my partner’s face that is nothing like the Boss’s razor one, but still reminds me of that. Something in the way his eyes focus. “A happy Gamester is a careless Gamester.”

“What a miserably depressing life that must be,” I say.

“Oh, Leah. I’m sure it has its perks.”


	7. There Will Always Be A Minimum Bet And A Maximum Bet For The Table

Madeline props her chin on her laced fingers, which doesn't stop the point of it from digging into my chest. She's light enough, sprawled across me, that I'm not going to kick her out of the bed while she's still being interesting. Looking up at me consideringly and discussing our erstwhile companions across the hall while we wait for dawn counts as interesting for my current purposes. (That she's naked and warm doesn't hurt. Nor does how she sweet-talked me into spending these few hours equally naked; there are things, when your Balseraph says them, which are entirely pointless to resist.)

"-- well, I think they're nicely dangerous," she's saying. "The girl especially, a Calabite that focused is always a little -- mm, you know, Vivienne. Smart ones get weird!"

"Is nicely dangerous why you decided to flirt with them, Madchen?"

She shrugs. It's one of those motions that she does with her entire body, like she's never quite gotten used to being a creature with limbs. "They weren't expecting it."

I tap my fingers down the knobs of her spine. "Neither was I," I say, just a little sharp.

She rolls her eyes at me. "If I told you everything then we wouldn't be people who find _creative solutions to unusual situations_ , would we. It was fine! She doesn't know what to do with us at _all_ , and her Djinn is --"

"Having fun," I say. 

"You think so?"

"I'd put money on it."

"House wins when you bet," Madeline says, and slithers off me to walk over to our suitcase and rummage in it.

"Good thing we're the house," I tell her. "He's damn smug, for a Magpie. Which either means he knows something we don't -- not about the job, I think they're as tactically ignorant as we are, the Calabite was fishing for information --"

"-- with that particularly desperate air that we also possess, Vee --"

"-- yes, _but_ , the Djinn knows something we don't, or something his partner doesn't that's relevant to the op, and he doesn't care enough to hide that he knows it."

Madeline comes up with the laptop and one of her ubiquitous tiny negligees. Every time she gets a new vessel, she outfits it in underthings. It means something to her. Ritual is important for Gamesters. It gets into the Forces. "Or he's just smug and a Djinn," she says, setting the laptop up on the desk and turning on the desklamp.

"Occam's Razor is for the simple and smallminded," I say. "Where would we ever be if we assumed people were what they appeared."

Entirely serious, Madeline says, "In Hell, mostly."

She has a point.

I sit up and retrieve my pants from the floor. While I put them back on, I ask, "Research?"

"Don't you want to read what we know about our Magpie friends?" 

Madeline's logged into the Game's corporeal-side internal file system. It is not a back door into the Archive, or even the parts of Hades which contain our files on every demon who passes through the Grey City and most of the ones who don't. That would be a security breach of the highest level, even if the Vapulan prototypes _didn't_ keep exploding on us. (I am grateful to be a Servitor in sufficient good standing that I do not receive Vapulan prototypes of any kind.) What the internal file system will do is pull up flags -- if there are any -- on a name or a place, and let us make a request for an entire file. That request will go down into Hell, be sorted, be evaluated for merit, be fetched, and be typed by hand from Helltongue into English and then sent back to Madeline's email address. The entire process should take no more than four to seven business days.

There are rules about information in the Grey City. They are very good rules, made for very good reasons.

No self-respecting Gamester fails to understand that all rules have loopholes.

"Not that way, Madchen. The fast way."

She pauses, her hands hovering over the keyboard. "Really?" she asks. "Didn't we have enough trouble with Intrigue during the --" She wrinkles her nose. "The riverboat thing? And now you want to buy files from her direct competition."

"I want fast," I say, "and I want the kind of dirt Intrigue wouldn't have on Thieves. Going to the Free Lilim is the best way to get it. Valefor wouldn't have sent anyone who'd have a terribly interesting file in _our_ systems."

"Mm, probably not, but --"

"Do you trust me?"

"You're my partner."

We both know that's not an answer. I walk over to her and settle my hands on her shoulders. The straps on the negligee have tiny buckles; they'll have left red marks on her skin when I finally stop pressing them down.

"Vee," Madeline says. Soft.

"Don't worry," I tell her. "I'll pay for it. Not that much, we don't need their life histories."

"Well, if you're paying," she says, and twists out from under my hands. She's halfway across the room when she adds, blithe and serene as ever, "Also you have to call, Lilim are _annoying_ on the phone!"

Lilim are annoying off the phone as well, but this is not the place or the time to make those corrections. I fish my phone out of my briefcase and dial a number that isn't written down on any device that belongs to the Game.

The voice on the other end of the line is female, smooth, and accentless. She gives me the name of some Earth company, the Corporeal-side cover for the Lilim information-broker network, and asks how she can help me. 

"I need some information on two individuals of interest," I say.

There's a pause. "You're calling from the United States. Are these individuals also based in the US?"

"As far as I am aware."

"Names, and any other identifying information you can provide, miss --?"

"You'll get my name if you can provide what I need. The two individuals are Thieves, a Calabite and a Djinn. The Djinn is Zhune, the Calabite is Leah. These might be Role-names."

Even over the phone, the information-broker Lilim sounds smug. "How much information will you be requiring?"

"Recent history, significant past events, general capabilities." 

"Do you require an accounting of Needs?"

I laugh into the phone. "How much are you charging?"

"Basic Needs," says the Lilim on the other end of the line, "are charged on a one-to-one basis. Your subject Needs a skinny vanilla latte, you pay an hour, maybe less. More complex Needs can be discussed with your specific broker, depending on the target and the level of the Need. And your Band, of course."

"Do you charge more or less for other Lilim?"

"If you were a Sister," says the Lilim, "you wouldn't need to ask." It is actually possible to hear when a Lilim capitalizes 'Need' and when she doesn't. 

"I don't require Needs at this time," I say, as clipped and efficient as I can manage. There is the distant sound of typing.

"Mm, do you have access to a video chat program?" asks the Lilim.

"You want to _Skype_?"

"Not me," the Lilim says. "Your broker. His name is Ash. He'll be available by this afternoon. Is that acceptable?"

"-- late this afternoon," I say. "After four."

"Oh, sure. Now. Your name?"

I give her my name, and a throwaway Skype address. Twelve hours and a guarantee is a better deal at this point in time than four-to-seven days. Even if I am going to be paying in favors. Especially if the Thieves are both on a time limit and assume we can't cope.

"All set up," I say to Madeline when I'm finished.

She's turned herself into a fair approximation of a local while I wasn't looking: jeans, fluffy parka, a knitted hat with pompoms on the top. Bright fuchsia lipstick, in case I'd forget that she's Madeline, which I wouldn't anyhow.

"Let's go watch the Comedians," she says cheerfully. "I made us some laundry! To help." She holds up a vinyl laundry bag which probably contains the former contents of our suitcase.

Trust Dark Humor to build their Tether over a laundromat.

"-- great," I say. "You carry it."

* * *

I rent a car at the hotel front desk, out of never wishing to enter that doubtlessly-stolen pickup truck again, let alone negotiate with the Thieves for shared-vehicle use, and expense it to the Role. This is the merit of being tied into the Corporeal world: Vivienne Sokol, employee in good standing of the government of the United States of America, has a credit line and a legitimate reason for being in South Dakota, namely the investigation of insurance fraud. (The three-letter agency that our Roles work for investigates many things; in this current age, the rules concerning what a government may surveil are subtle, esoteric, and boil down to 'whatever we like'. Madeline would say that we are making progress with the souls and hearts of mankind.)

Our new car is an anonymous black sedan, much like any other black sedan with four-wheel drive. I toss Madeline the keys and she snatches them out of the air. It is bitterly cold outside, but the sky is high and pale white-blue; the snow on the ground is the snow we're going to have. 

Madeline is a competent driver -- though compared to Zhune, nearly anyone qualifies as 'competent' -- and the car has a convenient GPS. Who needs Ofanim now that even humans have access to satellite technology? We make our way into what there is of downtown surrounded by a snarl of early-morning commuters, and park across the street and a block and a half down from the site of the Tether. It is barely eight in the morning. The second floor windows of the building are mostly dark, and it's the second floor where the Tether locus is supposed to be.

It's a comedy club, which is so predictable that I assume it counts as Funny, by Comedian definitions. Worse, it's a comedy club above a laundromat. The laundromat is open; I watch a young mother with a baby propped on one hip and a giant basket of dirty clothes propped on the other push her way inside.

"Do you think they own the whole building, or just the second floor?" Madeline asks me.

I take a careful look. If it was my Tether, I'd have bought out any human-owned businesses in the nearby vicinity, but I am not going to presume to predict the behavior of Servitors of Dark Humor. "If they've bought the laundromat, they'll own the rest of the building," I say. 

"No point in having _only_ a laundromat when you could have a basement also," Madeline agrees.

I look at her sidelong. She's being inscrutably serene and I cannot tell if she's trying to be funny. It must be the aura of Dark Humor bleeding off onto us. 

Surveillance is dull. It is meant to be dull. If it is exciting -- if you find yourself needing to lie, or run quickly, or call in dramatic developments to your supervisor -- then something has gone terribly wrong. Our morning in the car contains no such excitements. We observe people entering and leaving the laundromat. Madeline exits the car and returns with two cups of bitter, steaming gas-station coffee, which she proceeds to complain about for nearly an hour. We observe, with moderate interest, the appearance of what I expect is the Tether's Seneschal, a skinny middle-aged man all in theater-person black with a Basil Rathbone goatee; he sweeps into the little door beside the laundromat and up the stairs to the club. Two more hours reveal the presence of what might be a pair of Soldiers, or small demons in vessel -- a woman, blondish, and a man, dark-haired and brown-skinned, who proceed to put up fliers in the laundromat window and run around doing errands.

Of our target there is no immediate sign.

I leave Madeline with our laptop to see what the perfectly human, perfectly innocuous government databases will say about the employee records of this particular establishment, and proceed to do the laundry. She waves at me through the windshield while I manhandle the sack of clothing down the icy street. She's a delight, my partner. I couldn't do without her.

The inside of the laundromat is grim and reminds me overmuch of Tartarus. The machines whirr and thrum ominously, and cough out great clouds of steam when they're opened. They're also expensive. I am forced to break currency into quarters via feeding each bill, one by one, into a kiosk in the back, which spits them back out at me more often than not. When I've finally managed to get our clothing spinning inside a great metal drum, I have the distinct pleasure of sitting in a worn plastic bucket chair and gazing at the peeling linoleum floor. 

The trick to surveillance is to be bored in the way that a person who is supposed to be where you are would be bored. Not bored like an agent of the Game, waiting to spot something unusual, some broken part of the pattern of the world, but bored like an unemployed late-twenties denizen of a northern part of the Midwest, watching her clothing slowly get cleaned.

I am invisible. It's almost as good as Ethereal Form, and causes less disturbance.

This is how I spot our target. He comes down the employees-only stairs that lead up to the comedy club, followed closely by a stocky man I haven't seen before. He's still in the vessel he had when he was a Judge -- a face more interesting than handsome, smile-lines just starting around the eyes -- but he's changed the hair color, darkened it substantially, and he's swapped out his suit for jeans and a hoodie. He and the stocky man are having an argument about whether they are going to go out to get lunch. It is an achingly mundane argument, conducted in exasperated, exhausted tones. By the end of it, when the former Judge slumps his way even further down the stairs (so they _do_ own the basement!) and the stocky man leaves the laundromat with the cajoling promise of an entire sandwich from the 7-Eleven where Madeline had bought our coffee, I am entirely sure that we have an extra Djinn on our hands.

I stuff the laundry into a dryer and wait another excruciating hour. The Djinn comes back with sandwiches. Men and women bring in their dirty belongings and leave with clean ones. A dog barks from upstairs.

When the laundry's dry, I fold it. We have standards, in the Game. 

"How was the Laundrette of the Damned?" Madeline asks me, when I get back to our car. She has acquired from somewhere a pizza, and has eaten seven-eighths of it without my help. I snag the last piece and fold it in half so I can eat it without a plate.

"Hellish," I say. "Quite like the boring bits of Tartarus, honestly. Good news or bad news first, Madchen?"

"Good news first always."

"The Judge is there, and he isn't being allowed to leave."

Madeline grins. "We can help with that!" she says. "What's the bad news?"

"He's got a Djinn attached."

"Oh." She considers this for a moment, taps her tongue on her upper lip like she'd flicker it, long and thin and forked, in Hell. "Well. We have a Djinn. We should swap in."

It's not a bad idea. It'd be better if the Djinn we have was a Djinn I trusted.

* * *

We get back to the hotel with time to spare before the Lilim from the information-broker agency calls us. Talking with Frees requires a certain shift in perspective. They are demons, but they have particular delusions of independent action that necessitate reminding them that there are indeed forces larger than they, and those forces control Hell. I have a great deal of respect for Lilim who choose to bind to my Prince and serve the Word I serve; to come from the morass of freethinking that is the Guildhall and then submit with full knowledge to the Rules that bind every one of us, willing or not, is an admirable trait.

The information-broker Lilim are Free to a man, and they and their leader think that they own the independent currency of knowledge and can buy and sell as they desire. Any respect I have for them comes from how well they maintain that falsehood in the face of contrary evidence.

I forbid Madeline from coming into eye-contact view of the laptop webcam, and compose myself like I would for any interrogation. Nothing behind me that identifies my location other than 'hotel room'; nothing about my face or posture or clothing that says anything but Game. We are everywhere.

The call, when it comes through, is right on time. I accept it, and wait for the picture to resolve.

The other side is anything but anonymous. The Lilim is somewhere brightly lit, with city lights coming in through the windows behind him. His vessel is young -- hardly out of his teens, skinny, floppy hair falling into large brown eyes over a cheery smile, and he's dressed it in a bright yellow t-shirt and a coral scarf. He waves at the camera with a hand that is holding some kind of foamy coffee drink in a mug.

Hipsters. They're _everywhere_ these days.

"Hel _lo!_ " he says.

I nod at him. "You're Ash, I take it?"

"I am," he says, hands spread and smiling like there's no place other than helping me he'd rather be. "And you should be Vivienne. I’ve already pulled the files on your subjects, so we can get started whenever you’re ready. We can go over rates based on your specific requests, or I can send you the whole rate sheet, if you’d rather."

I wonder if he's trained in acting or if this is his normal personality. "Specificity is preferable at this particular juncture," I tell him. "I'd like a minute-long precis on each subject, comprising recent history and significant capabilities beyond the immediately obvious. We'll work up from there." I smile at him, the slow even smile that I learned from Jahathanna before I ever saw the Corporeal. "What's the charge?"

He leans forward just a little and sharpens underneath all that buoyant charm. Ridiculous clothing choices aside, this creature probably paid for his lovely apartment doing precisely what he's doing now, and the professionalism leaks through his cheerfulness like water dripping out of lime. "Depends on what kind of security ratings you want, in both directions," he says. "Standard rates for that are an hour per. That’ll give you a summary over the last five years--you can get twenty for two hours per, it’s not a bad upgrade price--leaving out any details that’ve been bumped up a security level. And if another client comes asking on who’s been checking in on these specific files, you’re on the list in the clear."

"What does the second security level buy me?" I ask. "On their data, not on mine. You can attach my name to these files all you want." There's no reason to hide what's a perfectly legitimate inquiry. We aren't keeping secrets from Theft; if the Magpies haven't spent part of their day doing equal amounts of research on us I'll be surprised.

"Second level gets you what you couldn’t find yourself without a lot of legwork, or the right contacts. How useful it is depends on the subject. Some people have embarrassing hobbies, some people have the wrong sorts of friends, some people have unusual skills." He finds the concept entertaining. I wonder how many files he's read. I wonder if he's read mine. Asking will cost in Geases, which is the essential problem in doing business with Lilim. I nod, make a little go-on gesture, and he obliges, with that same good cheer. "Some people have _nothing_ on that level, but that’s a kind of information too, so it costs the same to find out. The prices double as you go up, and if you’re paying for that, you may want to reconsider the one-minute limit on the summaries."

The problem is that he's probably right, and I'm looking at at least six hours of my life owed to him and his Sisters if I take him up on it.

I gamble instead. "I propose a trade," I say. "Two-minute summaries on each subject, second level security, and I pay you in two hours and answers to four questions you ask. Detailed answers."

His eyebrows lift, a bit impressed. (Just because I don't particularly enjoy the culture the Guildhall produces doesn't mean I don't understand how to pretend to operate within it, and I think I've just scored a touch.) "That’s a gamble. What kind of questions _won’t_ you answer? And will you swear to give reasonably complete ones? Short and vague’s not worth the trade."

I fold my hands and interlace my fingers. "I won't answer questions which endanger myself, my partner, or the interests of my Prince. But I'll swear to complete -- complete within a two-minute timespan, that is."

"Deal!" says Ash, and I feel the Geas settle around my wrist like a manacle. They pull, all Geases do, even when I'm not doing anything near to breaking one -- they're made of the sensation of impending disaster. I feel it, and I feel _through_ it, and I remember what the shape and dimension of this emotion is, and I will give it to someone else when I need to, someone who deserves it more than me. Ash is still talking. "Would you like your reports first, or your questions?"

"Oh, reports first. Then I pay you."

"First one," he says, and pauses just long enough for me to open up my notebook and poise the pen over the page. "Leo, Calabite of Theft, formerly the War, formerly Fire. Tiny bit of Renegade time between the War and Theft. Latest partner to Zhune, Djinn of Theft. He's a Tether expert, has a habit of leaving things on fire in his wake, but not so much lately. Was part of that incident with a Judge Cherub being dragged through Stygia by Prince Valefor. Does solid, reliable work, and gets the job done, with assignments turned in on time to the letter of the requirement. Specialty's in architecture and getting through it. Did contract work for Industrial Espionage recently, and for Inside Jobs a few years back."

Three Princes, and a former Renegade. The Calabite is bait, and bait that will bite if we take it. And she -- he? -- she, in this vessel, though now I wish I'd bargained for some questions of my own -- is the only one of the pair who gave us a false name. Not _very_ false. But little incongruities matter.

I can hear when Ash shifts over into the second security level, and he's right about what's in it: odd hobbies, odder friends. "He has a soft spot for fuzzy little things that aren't trying to kill him, and reads eighteenth century literature for fun. Used to date a Balseraph of the War, and that ended poorly. Rumor says he gets vicious and vindictive when pushed too far, but there's not much _hard_ evidence there. Doesn't like Habbalah."

Not everyone can have taste. 

Offhandedly, he adds, "His first supervisor was one. She disappeared recently, but there's probably no connection." That's a leading insinuation if I've ever heard one. He wants me to know that Leo is more dangerous than the Calabite looks; probably so that I don't get myself killed before he can call in the debts I'm going to owe him. "Real precision work with his resonance, and his favorite Song is EthForm." He checks his watch. "A hundred and thirty seconds. I'm slipping."

"Very efficient nevertheless," I say. No reason not to be friendly while we are all getting along so well. "Next?"

"Second one." Ash is more deliberate about this burst of information -- he either knows less or he's calibrating better for time. Or he's stalling me. "Zhune, Djinn of Theft. Been working for Valefor almost since he became a Prince. Lot of specialties over the years, recently a focus on Tether work; that shifted when he picked up the latest partner. He was in that same Cherub incident and the Inside Jobs contract. You don't want to fight him, corporeal or celestial. Can heal the former. Reliable work in all the standard Theft areas, knows _everyone_ in the Word. Sort of a serial monogamist, when it comes to partners, some babysitting gigs aside."

Interesting choice of descriptors. Serial monogamist implies one thing I already knew about the two Magpies: they're sleeping together; and one thing I didn't know for sure: that is not a source of stability in their partnership. Everything else in the description of Zhune is simultaneously nervous-making and exciting. He's old. He's dangerous. He's well-connected. I want to beat him at his own game; I want to _win_. The second-deepest instinct of a born Gamester, after _betray everyone but the Word_ : find a worthy opponent and destroy them.

I nod, wave Ash forward with a flick of one fingertip.

He says, "Likes to bed human women. Picks the crazy ones for partners, and they come to bad ends; he lost the last one to Industrial Espionage after a botched job, a decade back. He's good at poker and blackjack. Seems to be in a feud with a subset of Gluttony lately; not a lot of details, but Gluttony’s side is on the murderous side about it, and rumor says he taunts angels now and again for the fun of it. Don't let him drive."

I laugh. "Already knew the last part."

(And there's one more interesting incongruity in the pattern of our two Magpies: the Djinn lost a partner to Industrial Espionage, and the Calabite just took contract work with the same Word. There's something there. It's probably not something I need. But it's a lever, and a clever Player never refuses an advantage.)

I square my shoulders inside my suit-jacket. "Thank you," I say. "You can ask your questions now."

"Question number one!" He is truly disgustingly cheerful about everything. "What do you think of Zhune, based on your interactions with him so far? In the light of new information or not as you prefer; I can’t really ask you _not_ to think about it." He manages to sound both sympathetic and condescending by the end. It's a question I expected; he's collecting more data on what is obviously a subject of considerable interest to various parties, myself included.

"He is smug, controlling, and smarter than he plays," I begin. "He sticks to subtle measures so his overt ones are shocking when he employs them. I am not at all surprised that he is very old; the style is too confident to be anything but based in experience. His taste in clothes is extremely good, nearly good enough to be a liability: that's how I spotted him. I find him interesting. I don't meet many Djinn of Theft. He is a terrible driver and he either doesn't care, doesn't know, or uses it as leverage. He is not frightened of or worried about the Game."

Saying it, I realize that it's true: _Leo_ had been, but Zhune was easy with us, like we were a minor and entertaining diversion.

"Arrogant," I say. "As a summation."

Ash nods. I wonder if he's got a recording device somewhere. "Question number two's what you would expect. What do you think of Leo? Same caveats."

It is, indeed, what I expected. These are the lowball questions. What's coming next will be the dangerous ones. "He's wearing female vessel and not using the male version of his name. Despite looking like the kind of Calabite that lies around in a Dumpster, he's glib and well-spoken. Clever. Flirts when flirted with, but doesn't initiate. What he does initiate are plans and their execution. For the first twenty minutes we were with them I thought he was in charge of their partnership. More dangerous than he looks, certainly. Inclined towards -- or easily led towards -- life-and-limb-endangering ideas." I smile. "My partner thinks he's cute."

"Third question," Ash says, looking delighted at this description. "What do you think of your partner?"

Oh, _Lucifer save me._

Madeline, who knows when she's being talked about and who has, I am sure, been listening to this entire interrogation from just out of webcam range, laughs loud enough for Ash to easily hear. "Hi, Ash!" she calls, but she doesn't come into range of his sightline. Only I am subject to Lilim resonance today. 

Ash waves at the screen. Of course he does.

"-- as you can hear," I say, wryly, "my partner, Madeline, is extremely friendly and enjoys meeting new people. I hate to deny you her company, but only one of us drew the pay-in-favors card this morning, and it wasn't her. She's junior partner to my senior, which is not a measure of her abilities but a measure of how she uses them when undirected. She likes terrible kitsch and dystopian literature in English and will not learn enough Russian to get at the really good ones. She is a relentless servant of our Prince. I am -- fond of her. As partners go."

"Aww, Vee," Madeline says. I actually think she's blushing. Which she can do on command, but it's flattering nonetheless.

"Hush, Madchen," I say, which probably gives Ash a whole other set of information for our files all in itself.

He looks entirely charmed. "Fourth question and final question," he says, propping his chin on his fists. His eyes sparkle. "Setting aside answers that would endanger you and so on with the other agreed-on caveats... What would you least like the people I work for to know about you?"

_Shit._

There is nothing good about this question and no way to get out of it. Not with a Geas-band pulling gently at my wrist and reminding me that I am _required_ to answer. Truthfully and with reasonable completeness. For two minutes. And it's _least like_ , it's not even _what would be the most dangerous_ for the information-brokers to know, or _what is the most important_ , it's _like_ , it's personal. 

I try to begin with something tactical, at least. "I have enemies in Tartarus," I say, but that isn't nearly enough to satisfy the Geas. "I -- hate travel by boat. Everything about rivers, to be perfectly clear. I prefer Corporeal work to Hellside work, even though Hellside work is often more necessary?" I can hear the upward inflection of my own sentences. I'm searching for _anything_ that will turn the Geas off; if I was doing this interrogation I'd be smug. I say that. "If I was doing this interrogation I'd be smug right now." Still not enough. "Do you want an accounting of taste in literature? Will that be sufficient? Gorky. Bulgakov. Pasternak."

The Geas dissolves like bubbles popping in champagne. I breathe out.

"I should probably add those to my reading list," says Ash, sweet and almost _gentle_ , which is both clever and deeply insulting. "Not nearly enough Russian literature on there yet. It’s been a real pleasure doing business with you, Vivienne. I’ll get the rest of the fees set in place. Is there any other business you’d like to handle, as long as we’re both still here?"

The other two Geases, uninvoked as of yet, sink like sharp hooks into my Forces; I'll have to get used to them.

"The pleasure's all mine, I'm sure," I say. Politesse is the last refuge of everyone, including me. "I think we're done here." I certainly hope we're done here. "I'll commend your thoroughness to my supervisors in my mission report."

He smiles and waves, and the screen goes black.

"Bulgakov, _really_?" says Madeline, coming to sprawl on the bed, her chin on her hands and her feet kicked up behind her in the air. "But he's so -- so anti-Party."

" _Satire_ , Madchen," I say. "And allegory."

"I guess."

I do not want to talk about literature. I do not want to talk about anything at all relating to that series of minor unpleasant confessions. I abandon Madeline to the laptop and the bed and go take a shower before we have to reconvene with the Magpies. At least in there no one will ask me questions.


	8. In Which A Few Things Proceed According To Plan

I have reached a point in my life where just walking into a mall makes me nervous. Which is, given the sort of shit I deal with on a regular basis, sort of pathetic right there. High speed car chase? Been there, done that, learned a few tricks for evading pursuit. Yet another Malakite threatening to cut off fingers? Got that covered. Won’t make me _happy_ , but I can cope. Stepping into the antiseptic dry air of a mall, with those bland wide corridors stretching out around me? My shoulders tense up and it’s an effort to not start breathing faster.

I’d blame Zhune, but then he’d just blame me, and we have a job to do today. The boring part of it.

“Relax,” he says. I’m staring down at the first floor, while he keeps watch on the passersby, his elbows propped on the same railing I’m leaning over. We can talk and watch people without ever even facing each other this way.

“How can I relax when you’re spending this whole job acting like it’s fun and games?”

“One of us ought to be having some fun,” he says, “and apparently it won’t be you. Though you could, if you put some effort in.”

I take a quarter from my pocket to turn between my fingers, watching the people passing below. Cold metal on only moderately cold skin. I need a jacket. “Or we could focus on the job. I don’t mind it when you fuck around with people between jobs, but this is not the time for it.”

“Games are always appropriate with these people,” Zhune says, lazy and smug. “Are you worried?”

“Yes, I’m worried. We don’t know nearly enough about them, not so much as they know about us.”

“They’re mid-level,” Zhune says. “Standard pair. Someone might have picked that set of Bands to mess with your head, or it might be coincidence. Probably coincidence. You can tie yourself into knots trying to work out what has significance, with the Game, so don’t start.”

“Define ‘mid-level’.” If I dropped this quarter onto someone’s head from here, it’d be an annoying pain. Probably wouldn’t bruise. Add two dozen stories, and it might approach lethal velocity. It’s amazing what a difference in relative power levels can make to how the same action plays out.

“Competent, and proven so under fire. No distinctions, or one at most between them.” He sounds so dismissive. “Good enough to get this job done in style. With our help.”

“And just _how_ sure are you that there are no ringers in this job? No setup aimed at either of us, or some bigger plan than we know about?”

“Moderately,” Zhune says.

“Oh, that fills me with confidence.”

He leans back further, close enough to smile at me, and ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry, Leah. I’ll keep you safe from the big, bad Players.”

“Stop being a condescending asshole, _John_ , and get us some hard data on these people. You have friends. Surely you know someone to call who can give us some basics.”

“Don’t we have paperwork to look up?”

“Yes.” I close my eyes for a moment. Steady breaths. Doesn’t do any good to have a real fight with my partner in a public space. When I open my eyes, the mall around me hasn’t changed. Miserably places. They should all be razed and replaced with high-density affordable housing with some decent commercial services on the first two floors. That’d be a damn sight more useful all around. “Call. Get us some hard information on our erstwhile coworkers, and I’ll put together a wardrobe professional enough to be taken seriously when I talk to the nice governmental bureaucrats in the neighborhood. And pull your attunement from that last woman, if you’re still attached, so that we can get some computer access to yank the files they won’t show us based on sweet-talk alone.”

“I’ll help you pick out an outfit,” Zhune says. “You have the fashion sense of a stunned badger, you know.”

“I’ll cope. If you wanted input in what I’m wearing today, you should’ve made the call yesterday, instead of stuffing me into _this_.”

“First impressions matter,” Zhune says. “Especially with these people.”

“And now--” I stop before I say something stupid. And now I’m about to show up dressed entirely differently. Like someone who can switch modes of interaction that easily. This is merely another stage of Zhune’s game with the Gamesters, and for once I’m two steps behind everything he’s planning.

“And now?” he prompts gently. If we were not in public, I’d kick him.

“You have to stop playing with these people,” I tell him, for what little good it’ll do me. “I’ll meet you at the tax office in an hour and a half. Can I trust you to get the truck there without embedding it in a snowbank?”

“Probably,” he says. “Can you put together a professional outfit in that time?”

“Enough that they’ll listen when I talk.”

“You’d look more professional in a skirt.”

I fish out the keys to press into his hand. “In your dreams. Get us _information_. I’ll settle for rumors if you can’t do better.”

“And here I thought you had a quick line to information with that Lilim of yours.”

Oh, that’s a barbed statement right there. “Only if you’re fine with me picking up Geases,” I say sweetly, and stalk away through the mall before he can render an opinion. Like I don’t know what he thinks on that, and like I’m going to give him a chance to phrase it in a way that digs in.

But he has a point. There’s no way I’d be up for dealing with two Gamesters without him, and he knows how this kind of situation, ha, plays out. So all I can do is follow his lead, keep my eyes on the job, and trust him to know where the real hazards are.

And trust that he’ll keep messing with my head along the way. It makes him happy. He’s real damn happy right now.

#

Actually acquiring clothes isn’t hard. I walk into the most expensive store in the mall that appears to sell actual pants for women, and ask for help. Twenty minutes later, I walk out in an olive green coat that will keep me warm and cover a multitude of sartorial sins. What I have on beneath is neither as sturdy nor as comfortable as I’d prefer, but there are no skirts involved and I look like I have money and sense. It’ll do.

It’s more what Lanthano would suggest I wear than what Julie or Zabina would have. Julie would want something sexier, Zabina would want something more formal. It’s actually moderately inconspicuous, insofar as I can any such fucking thing in this vessel, so I’ll take it regardless.

There’s no good reason for me to think about older jobs when this one’s demanding all my attention.

A decent local map and a disposable smartphone get me to the tax office twenty minutes before Zhune shows up. I spend the extra time playing nice with the people inside, as apparently this is not a busy time for them and half the clerks are bored out of their skulls. Never hurts to be nice, especially when you’re planning on asking for some favors.

Once my partner arrives, we tag-team the clerk I’ve picked out as most useful, and end up eventually sent off to chat with a particular manager in a private office. Someone with the right sort of access to the right sorts of databases, which she’s happy to give us access to once Zhune shakes her hand.

We leave the office two hours later with enormous stacks of paper. It’s boring as hell, but this is the glamor of Theft. Especially when your Prince asked you to make it a _clean_ job.

Most of the afternoon we spend in the cab of the truck, reviewing the data at hand. By and large the Tether is as boring as they come. Standard commercial establishment doing exactly what it says on the tin. Low-rent comedy, mostly vicious in nature. Big into comics who tag their acts as “not politically correct,” as if they’re defying a military force ready to sweep in and cart them off to prison at the first hint of telling the wrong sort of joke. (No, that would be the _Game_ , thanks.) Situated over a laundromat, which is the sort of dreary mundane location to shove your clients and audience through before they hit the theater, just to make sure they’re primed properly with a general resentment for their daily lives.

Wait. Laundromat.

“You’re spending a lot of time on the phone,” Zhune says, right when I’m in the middle of trying to figure something out.

“That’s because it has a calculator function, and Google.”

“Want to share with the class?”

I could decline to do so. But I’m the one making noise about being professional, and keeping details from my partner about the job itself is not professional in the slightest. “I’m working out how much power each of these machines they have in there use, washers and dryers. And how much water the washers use. If we assume that roughly equal amounts of laundry go from dryer to washer, based on load size, then we can figure out from the water usage how much electric usage that place should be using. Then go look at what’s reasonable for a theater.”

“Fascinating,” Zhune says.

I resist the urge to fling something at him. “And they are using a lot more electricity than the laundromat justifies. Of course they’d choose something with an obscene power draw like that, because then nobody _notices_ , not like they would if the place downstairs was a used clothing store or the like. But the numbers don’t add.”

“So you’re saying...?”

“If you see something metal in the theater, don’t touch it. Just in case.” I lean over to grab the blueprints from his stack of papers. “Are you even looking at these?”

“I looked at them. I recalled that the official filed plans seldom match to what’s inside a Tether after two years of control, much less the two dozen years that this one has had.”

“That’s not the--look, never mind. Tell me what we know about the Gamesters.”

Zhune shrugs loosely. He has acquired that particular aura of placid contentment that tells me he’s annoyed to be sitting in the cab of a truck when we could be somewhere more comfortable. “They’re probably who they say they are.”

“Probably.”

“Nothing is certain in life, Leah.”

Deep breaths. That’s the ticket. “Anything else?”

“They are Servitors of the Game,” he says with deliberate patience, “who act as Servitors of the Game ought to. They are models of their kind, without being wildly exceptional, at least in any way that draws attention. The Balseraph is interesting.”

He is waiting. He is _waiting_ for me to ask, and I spend ten minutes double-checking my numbers and contemplating the blueprints before I finally say, “Interesting?”

“It was a long story,” Zhune says. “Try not to be interrogated by her. Do you think you can manage that?”

“I don’t know, how interrogation-happy _is_ your usual pair of Gamesters?”

He wiggles a hand in the air. “So long as you can keep your pants on around her, you should be fine.”

“I think I can do that.”

“Though knowing your track record with Balseraphs, and other types of creatures with designations ending in ‘seraph’--”

This time I do throw my phone at him. He catches it neatly.

“Somehow I think I can avoid being seduced by the Game. What are they going to do, tell me sexy chess stories? Suggest I can get laid if I sell out my coworkers?” And it occurs to me that this is not a line of conversation I want to go down. “Keep the Habbalite off my back, and I can cope with one Balseraph.”

“I’m sure I can keep the Punisher distracted,” Zhune says, which is not what I asked for, and I don’t think the change in words is coincidental.

Not going to ask. I shove my stack of papers aside. “We know as much as we’re going to from this mess in this amount of time. Give me a week, I could do better.”

“You do better on short notice and deadlines anyway,” Zhune says, “no matter how much you bitch about it.”

“Back to the hotel now, or later? Because either we show up early to the appointment, or I expect they’ll be waiting in our room when we get there.”

“Later,” Zhune says.

“Did you stash anything in the room for them to find?”

“Probably not,” he says, and I don’t get any more information from him about that but a lot of annoying smugness. But I do make him take me to a decent barbecue place, where we can waste a few hours in hogging a table and arguing over things that have nothing to do with the job.

I make sure to tip well. If Zhune’s going to keep stuffing cash in my pockets, I might as well do something with it.

#

We hit the hotel lobby at the hour, and a desk clerk flags Zhune down before we even reach the elevators. (I’d ask soon take the stairs, myself. Fewer hidden moving parts and fewer mirrors.) “Excuse me, sir,” says the human, “but I just wanted to let you know that your younger sister and her--friend are waiting for you in your room. She stopped by to pick up the key you’d left for them.”

“Excellent,” Zhune says, without breaking stride.

I wait until we’re out of earshot to say to Zhune, “Even by human standards, the two of you don’t look much alike.”

“Some humans,” Zhune says, “are not particularly observant.” He looks amused. Of course he does. This upcoming conversation is going to be an absolute joy to get through.

As a matter of principle, I let Zhune walk through the door first. If he wants to play Senior Partner, he can have as much of that as he likes. (And while I’m not expecting bullets, it never hurts to be a little careful when on the job.) So he’s the first to catch the professional glower from the Habbalite leaning against the opposite wall. Either the surveillance went poorly, or she doesn’t like what she picked up on researching us. Or maybe she’s just trying to be intimidating.

It’s sort of working. I square my shoulders, and smile with my teeth. Mostly at our resident Balseraph, who’s perched on the desk, one foot swinging. I don’t trust any smiles I get from her, but isn’t it nice for us both to pretend to be pleased to see each other?

“Just look at us,” I say breezily, “almost on time like we’re some sort of professionals.” I shut the door behind us, and do a quick survey of the space available to me. Sitting on the bed puts me directly between the two Gamesters. Sub-par. Leaning against the door looks defensive, and besides, I think Zhune has one of his trademark elegant wall-leans planned, beside which I look small and imitative.

I walk past the Balseraph on the desk to grab the desk chair, and flop down in that.

“Almost,” says the Habbalite, dry and cool. Someone’s not pleased to see us, or at least wants to convey that. (I need to stop double-guessing anything they project. Assume that expressions of distaste are honest, anything otherwise faked, and continue accordingly.)

“Hi, Zhune! Hi, Leo!” says the Balseraph. Their research done, and shown off: check. In a way, it’s a relief, I don’t have to worry about letting on about certain general background details if they already know. “How did visiting the government go?”

“It was fun,” I say. I can’t be quite as _bright_ as this Bal without making my teeth hurt, but I can certainly emit casual cheer if I feel like it. “Bureaucracies usually are. We found some exciting numbers that imply interesting things without confirming anything, and pulled some details on the layout that are almost certainly inaccurate by now. How was the surveillance?”

Zhune is playing tall, dark, and silent again. But he’s watching the Habbalite. Not any sort of staring, but as he keeps an eye on everything that goes on in the room, that’s where his attention hooks now and again. It’s almost exactly what I asked him to do and he offered to, and it still makes me uneasy. The only time to mess with Habbalah is with heavy weaponry and backup. Better yet: sniper rifle.

"We did laundry. It was very dull.” That’s from the Balseraph on the desk near me. It looks like both of us junior partners get to handle the information exchange, while our seniors have their indirect stare-off. “Vivienne found us the target, though, and an extra Djinn to go with him."

Her partner nods shortly to confirm this. "He's where we expected he'd be and he isn't going anywhere."

“We can always use an extra Djinn,” I say, and mark that mental slot as confirmed. Which makes me happier than the reverse; if it weren’t confirmed, I’d have to _wonder_ if they had a way of tracking the guy in the event of a kidnapping--or the Impudite doing a runner himself, which I think they’ll be keeping an eye on for a while, given the unreliability of people who switch Superiors, myself maybe being a case in point--and now we know exactly who to remove from the picture.

I spin the chair around to drop the papers I brought across the desk, to one side of Madeline. “Excuse me,” I say to her, because I am laying out paperwork a few centimeters from her side. “If anyone wants to take a look at this, it’s probably relevant. Did you get a good look at anyone other than the target?”

Which is the signal for a general pooling of information, all of which comes at a much more enthusiastic rate from Madeline than Vivienne. What a surprise. I deliver our half of the results, and point out the parts where I’m pretty sure the building and its interior will deviate from what the papers say.

Zhune watches and listens, because he’s having far more fun working out how he’s going to mess with the Gamesters than helping me _do our job_. There are days I’d almost wonder if I’d be better off working alone. But then who would watch my back?

“The only tricky part I see,” I say, once we’ve run out of numbers and descriptions, “is finding a distraction sticky enough to keep the Seneschal distracted long enough to not be an issue, without making it so obviously a hostile act that he realizes it’s a distraction and bolts right back to the Tether.”

The Balseraph’s the first to respond. "Inconveniencing Seneschals is part of _our_ job description, that's not tricky--" 

Her partner breaks in. "But even if you take out the Seneschal there's still the matter of getting the Impudite away from his Stalker--”

“--without being ID'd by anyone watching the Tether,” finishes Madeline. Not interruptions, then, but the smooth back and forth of people who have worked together often.

“I assumed,” I say, “that you two could handle detaching the Impudite. You’re the Game, you’re _expected_ to annoy Dark Humor periodically, and if someone else sweeps through and grabs the new Fallen right afterward, it’s clearly not your problem. That’s half the point of using the basement connection rather than the front door.” Did I actually mention using the basement door?

Well. Not explicitly. But I thought it was pretty obvious from what I pointed out on the blueprints. It’s there, of course we’re going to use it.

“The simple way,” I continue, because Zhune’s starting to look like he might have an objection to slide in, “is to split it up again. We handle the Seneschal, you two get the Stalker detached, we do the grab, meet up afterward for the, uh, road trip portion of things.”

The Gamesters swap a look. I’ve been on the inside of very similar ones before. "It's charming how you expect us to let you swipe the target and provide the means of transportation out." Vivienne’s sharp smile is tiny, a completely different expression than the one Magpies pick up from our Boss, and yet recognizably just as razored. "Besides. My instructions are to work _with_ Theft. Right alongside."

I spread my hands. “No skin off my nose. But it’s _awkward_ for us to walk into the Tether and have a chat with the Jokers. Too many old friends to run into. And we’re best off inconveniencing that Seneschal at the same time. I suppose one of you could detach a Stalker alone.”

"Or I could provide one of you with a suitable other face. Briefly." Vivienne is working her way towards competing with Zhune in the smugness races, but so far she’s mostly hitting arrogant and not too fussed about it.

I clap my hands together. “Great! You and Zhune can handle that, Madeline and I will get the Seneschal taken care of--if you’re good with that?” I flash the Balseraph a winning smile. The smile I get back is so big and sincere it’s a little worrying, but no time to think about _that_. “There we go. So that’s settled. I figure daylight’s the best time for all this. Any questions?”

Madeline’s hand shoots into the air. "When's the last time you two worked with _anyone_ else?" And her partner’s amused at the question, for a split second before she’s back to playing the smugness game. (She should know better than to compete with Zhune on that one. He’s a master of the form.)

“Not that long,” I say lightly. “I suppose it’s been a few months since we did anything major that involved teaming up with other people.” More like several months, unless we count my time with the Marquis’s people, and it really depends on whether or not that really awkward thing with the Ofanite counts. Let’s just...not go into details on this one.

Madeline leans in a little, with a confiding tone. "That's not an answer, Leo. That's an _evasion_. It's all right, though, it's very understandable, you Thieves aren't used to answering directly." Her smile’s shinier than mine. I’m revising any previous impressions that had me wondering if she might be an Impudite. Regan would never wear that expression, but the intensity is entirely Balseraph. "Which is why we should get to know each other better! Since we're going to be splitting up and working together so _closely_."

“That’s not a bad idea,” Zhune says, before I can give any more appropriate response to this proposal.

It’s a _terrible_ idea. And there is no way I can deflect it now without breaking the illusion of me and my partner being so very much in accord. (Five to one says that if I do, Zhune would still be entertained. It’s one of those setups.)

Madeline asks him, “You think so?” The question sounds perfectly innocent, and I think we all know better.

Zhune lifts an eyebrow slightly. I read it as _It’s your idea, and now you need validation?_ but I wouldn’t count on a stranger to pick that much out of the expression. “Makes sense to me,” he says. “What did you have in mind?”

Holy fuck, he’s going to let them pick _group bonding activities_ if I don’t intervene.

"We could play Questions--"

"No," says the Habbalite, before Madeline can get much further with that suggestion. Quite possibly a game of Questions ran over her dog, judging by the face she just made.

"--fine, Vee. You pick." Whereas I have seen that exact expression on Katherine’s face, which is an odd moment of memory that I should not pursue when sitting this close to a Balseraph of the Game.

And Vivienne does not have to spend time thinking to come up with a suggestion. "Cards is traditional."

“Why not?” Zhune says, as I’m opening my mouth to suggest something else, _anything_ else, I could really just ramble until I came up with a good excuse to not go with a game of cards against _Gamesters_.

Sometimes my partner is a terrible person.


	9. It Is Not Legal To Skip a Move, Even When Having To Move Is Detrimental

I am not surprised when Zhune agrees to play cards with us. He has at least two good reasons to do so: firstly, his partner disapproves, and they are playing out some kind of internal struggle between them at least partially for our eyes -- how much of it is a smokescreen for a more hidden agenda remains to be determined -- and secondly, he is competitive, arrogant, and like the majority of Magpies, is likely quite decent at poker and thinks he can win a hand or three.

We will not be playing poker. Poker is not a get-to-know-you sort of game.

"Marvelous!" my partner is saying, hopping off the hotel desk to retrieve the decks of cards I know she has in the pockets of her coat. "I know an _excellent_ four-person game."

Zhune regards this development with a politeness which I am nearly sure by now is a carefully-constructed mask of disinterest; he might be a Djinn, but he's not _bored_ and if he wants me to think he is, he isn't quite succeeding.

"How many decks, Vee?" Madeline calls.

"Oh, three at least," I say. After all, Mao is a game which works best with multiple decks: it makes counting cards a non-trivial exercise. Madeline brings them to me. Each deck is fresh, still in its plastic coating, and I peel them one by one.

By now it ought to be clear to both of our Magpies that we will not be playing poker, but all the expression I get from Leo is a slope-shouldered sullenness that isn't about the game at all. She's still reacting off her partner. We will have to push her.

The cards spin between my fingers. Three decks shuffle together easily enough, one split between the other two and the whole pile flung together in an arch. I offer them to Madeline.

She cuts them and hands them back, eyebrows up. I shake my head, smiling. "Your deal, Madchen," I say.

 _"Really?"_ She looks delighted, wide-eyed, not suspicious at all. The last one is false. I'm the one who grew up on Mao, I'm the one who was trained by the Marquis who holds that Word; when we play, the two of us alone or in some casual competition with other Servitors, I play Dealer.

But I want to watch our new compatriots, and I want to influence how they play, which means I need to be feeding them what few rules they can discern from how I play my own hand. After all, Mao is an information-sorting game masquerading as a discard-based cardgame: even if the object of the game is to get rid of all your cards, the point of playing is to see how fast you can learn the Rules.

"Really," I say to Madeline.

She grins and drops down to sit cross-legged on the floor, waving the Thieves over. "Come on, then," she says. I sit across from her, which should put Zhune and Leo on either side of us.

They do not arrive promptly. After a moment Zhune affixes his partner with a look that might imply _what are you waiting for_ , or would if I was looking at Madeline that way.

"I don't play card games," says Leo, overbright. "Look! You've already learned something about me."

Madeline manages to look offended, disappointed, and sad, all at once: quite nearly tremulous. If she keeps it up for another ten seconds I will be forced to pat her sympathetically on the knee.

"Maybe," Zhune says, with the air of someone beginning a long and familiar negotiation, "you'll have fun."

"We could play War," Leo says -- a terrible suggestion, and the Calabite knows it, too, with how blithe she's being -- "With three decks and four players, we might finish the game by sunrise."

"Playing War doesn't even have the moments of utter terror to relieve the boredom that the real thing does," Madeline says. 

"Ooh, my favorite thing about that game," says Leo.

Madeline sighs. In Hell she'd roll all three sets of her eyes. "Imperfect modeling is not a _merit_ , Leo," she begins, and I wonder if I'm going to have to corral the Calabite down onto the floor before my partner decides that we will be spending our evening discussing simulation granularity. 

For all of our sakes, I sincerely hope that Zhune will run out of patience shortly, but he remains politely expressionless. I catch his eye over Madeline's head, raise one eyebrow, and gesture fractionally towards Leo. _Can't you deal with your partner,_ in facial expression and the shift of two fingers: it should be direct enough for him to catch and small enough that Leo, occupied by my Balseraph, will miss it entirely. (If not -- well. If not, I revise my opinions of them both.)

Leo says, "Are we attempting to _imitate_ the War, or set up a superior example for them to emulate? Because as types of models go--"

(At this rate _I_ am going to end up hearing about simulation granularity all day tomorrow, if this Calabite gets my partner fixated on it --)

Ah. Good. Zhune has his arm around Leo, murmuring something I can almost catch into her ear, and her face goes blank. Receptive-blank, not panic-blank, but the sort of receptive I'd expect from someone whose partner had a resonance much more like mine than like a Djinn's. 

It occurs to me that Zhune has done exactly what I asked, when I asked it. Twice: once to play cards, once to fetch his partner. He is not an idiot; consequentially he is letting me win; therefore he is dangerous.

Leo sits to my left, as if she had been planning to do so all along. She asks Madeline, rather sweetly, "So what game did you pick?"

My partner cannot resist a straight line and she knows I know it.

She says, "This is a game of Hadean-style Mao! Play is in the style of Crazy Eights: suit on suit, number on number, and proceeds to the dealer's left. The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards. Resonance rules are not in effect. Technologist variants are not in effect. All moves must be legal on the Corporeal! You may address the dealer as — mm, you may address the Dealer as Dealer, that seems fair, since it's mixed doubles! There is no talking." She deals from the top of the deck as she explains. Seven cards for each of us, flicked to land expertly in front of every player. 

There's a ritual to Mao, or Mao is a ritual -- with prohibitions and correct orders of events. I don't touch my cards until Madeline is done with the introductory speech. Touching your cards outside of play breaks a rule and will incur a penalty. The Magpies don't pick theirs up either, which implies they know how to play -- not impossible -- or they're watching me for cues, which is more likely.

Madeline flips the top card of the deck and scoops up her own hand, which means I can retrieve mine. 

Ten of diamonds. Play passes to Zhune, on her left.

"Ten of spades," he says, playing it. Suspicions confirmed: he knows this game. Second provisional conclusion, deriving from the choice of a card whose play requires ritual language: Leo does not know how, and Zhune is educating her as fast as possible. 

I wonder if she'll pick it up.

My turn. I pull the Jack of Spades from my hand. Spades are all of-spades, but court cards have rules of their own, and in Hadean-style Mao each Suit represents a Word. Spades belong to Fate. I say, "Jack of spades. By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour."

Leo pauses only an instant (she understands, she's making a deliberate error, or she's throwing the game) before playing the Jack of diamonds (she understands or she's making a deliberate error) -- and says, "I don't see the point of a game without decent conversation." Deliberate error. Smart, in a sense. Early penalties can be worthwhile if they are tradeable for knowledge of the rules.

Maddy grins at her, and hands her two cards off the top of the draw deck. "Penalty," she says, "you didn't quote something thematic to Theft. Penalty, talking."

Taking the cards, Leo smiles right back at her. "If I'm quoting a Thief, it's automatically thematic, Dealer."

My partner is implacable, like a mildly gleeful card-dispensing automaton. "Penalty," she says, "talking." And hands over another card.

"I should have brought my Bartlett's," says Leo, and actually holds out her hand for another card.

"Penalty, talking," Madeline tells her, obliging and verging on sly.

"And I don’t like the cards you’re giving me. Since _you’re_ the Dealer, you should be able to find me better cards."

Madeline looks halfway between flabbergasted and delighted, the expression of someone handing over enough rope for a noose. "Penalty," she says, a barely-voiced amused breath -- _flirt_ \-- "talking."

I glance at Zhune. He is watching this exchange with as much intent as I am, but that serene facade of enlightened disinterest is just a bit cracked. Concern, possibly. Annoyance, possibly. (At my partner flirting with his? At his partner deciding to burn through the entire draw pile on _turn three?_ )

Thoughtfully, Leo says, "I think one more card will do it, thanks." She isn't even looking at Zhune, though she _must_ be aware of how he looks like he's considering throwing something at her (or kissing her -- or at least that's what I'd do if it was _my_ partner). She just has her hand out, waiting for more cards.

"Penalty, talking," says Madeline, languorous. She doesn't bat her eyelashes -- she _lowers_ them, one long slow blink, looks up through them, smiles as she hands over the card.

Leo at least keeps her promises, and is quiet.

Madeline doesn't need to refocus like someone who didn't serve our Prince would; even these side-exchanges are part of the game, and she merely tosses an appropriate card -- six of diamonds, no ritual required -- onto the pile. Zhune glances at his hand, reaches for the draw pile, draws, and says, "Pass." Simple. Easy. Just correct, not informative.

Therefore I play the ace of Diamonds. Aces are skips -- not a spoken ritual, a rule-shift. They absolve the player next in line of having to play (and from making any progress towards the eventual goal of discarding every card.) Now I will wait to see what Leo will do, and tell Zhune something at the same time: if he cannot control his partner, his partner will not get to play at all.

Leo does not know how to play Mao. (Or if she knows, she wants us to think she doesn't --) I stop myself from analyzing that probability. There is a point at which knowing all the possible lines of play results in diminishing returns. So when she plays the two of diamonds, she has only _accidentally_ been clever. 

"Penalty," says my partner with perfect chagrin, handing Leo yet another penalty-card with a flourish, "playing out of turn -- card stands. The Reign of Twos is in effect."

Any two played during a game of Hadean-style Mao, even illegally (for illegal actions can necessitate changes in the state of play, even in Hell), invokes the reign of twos: cards must now be played in either ascending or descending number order, regardless of suit, until someone plays another two -- but all other rules are suspended during the Reign. We may now talk. I am looking forward to what we might say. Madeline examines her hand, and sighs with an exaggerated moue of a frown. "Pass," she says, drawing a card.

"Need any help, Leah?" Zhune says, sweet and just a little condescending -- between the tone and the use of her Role-name it is less of a question than it is a rebuke. 

"Have a pen?" she says. He apparently does not -- all he does is shrug and play the three of spades.

 _I_ have a pen. I play the four of hearts, and flip the pen out of my inside jacket pocket to Leo. "Don't run off with it, Magpie."

She adds the five of hearts to the pile in the center. "Stealing loaned items is petty," she says, and proceeds to use my pen to write something on one of her cards.

It is not illegal to deface the deck in Mao. It is even less illegal to deface the deck during the respite offered by the Reign of Twos. It is annoying nonetheless. "Pettiness has stopped very few people of my acquaintance," I say.

My partner laughs -- she knows I'm right, from experience -- and plays the four of clubs. Zhune passes again.

I have a three; I play it. "Are you going to get us out of what you got us into, Leo?"

"Why would I want to?" Leo says. She slides a card -- I strongly suspect it's the one she marked -- face down across the playing field to Zhune. (It's not illegal. Nothing is illegal right now. It makes me frustrated nonetheless.) Then she holds out her hand with my pen in it, palm up like it's a gift I have to pluck out of her grip. "You don't think it's more fun this way? For, let's be honest, really _broad_ definitions of fun. Pass."

There is a brief pause while we all contemplate whether to pick up the card Leo has placed in front of Zhune. I am expecting Madeline to intercept it -- I suspect both Magpies also expected Madeline to intercept it -- but she doesn't. She merely waits, until Zhune finally picks it up. He reads whatever Leo has written there, eyes his partner, and passes the thing right _back_ \-- or tries to, because my partner has snatched it up (and here I thought I have been getting too comfortable with Theft-style manipulation). 

She says, "Finders keepers," and plays it. It is a two of hearts. And Leo's written _I will get you for this, you fucking asshole._ across it in pen, with the heart in the upper corner circled. I am charmed all despite myself.

"The Reign of Twos has ended!" says Madeline decisively. 

Zhune nods to her and plays the ace of hearts -- and says nothing at all. He ought to have referenced the Media (Hearts are Media this half-century). Whichever version of Mao he learned to play, it isn't Hadean Standard. (Or it's Hadean Standard from before I was created. But it's probably not Hadean Standard. Mao is played in Stygia. Jahathanna claims it is quite popular with Factions.)

Madeline hands Zhune a card, which he takes with equanimity. "Penalty," she says. "You failed to make an appropriate confession."

I've been skipped by that ace, so it's Leo again -- and she plays the ten of hearts, a completely legal, completely ritualless card. It is almost as if she knows how to play. (Or has learned. Fast.)

"Strike that," Madeline says, playing another ten of hearts from one of the other decks, "reverse it." Doubled cards change the _direction_ of play. This time she _does_ bat her eyelashes at Leo, that motion that'd be a rippleblink of eyelids in Hades.

"Pass," says Leo, like she's accepted the invitation Madeline's giving her.

I lack an appropriate card to play in this particular situation.

When there is no appropriate move, one changes the rules.

I pull the king of Diamonds from my hand, placing it face-up in front of me. "I invoke Stygia rules. Talking is permitted, if you are lying. Endgame condition on Stygia rules: steal the diamonds." If Zhune learned Mao in Stygia, he'll know this variant.

(If my partner is paying attention to the game, she'll know we've moved to slight-of-hand and stacking the deck.)

The look Zhune gives me is damnably inconclusive.

Madeline, however, is focused right on me where she belongs. "You're the easiest partner to play with, aren't you," she says sweetly. Balseraphs can lie in the conventional fashion, after all. Madeline just doesn't enjoy it. She says it's unnecessary and crude. 

"You could do better, I'm sure," I tell her.

"This would be less fun as a drinking game," Leo says, while Zhune plays an eight of hearts (legal, lacking ritual, correct). Obvious lie, albeit one of personal opinion; allowed.

Madeline says, "There aren't any variants with drinking."

"It's a good thing we didn't decide to try for the kind with drinking, then," says Leo.

My partner says, "That would have been awful," and plays the three of hearts. She is a terrible liar, even for a Balseraph, and it's Leo's turn again.

She plays the nine of hearts, and says nothing at all. 

Which is strange. She won't shut up, usually. She's made a point of not being quiet even when it's to her advantage to stay silent. Has she finally decided to play nicely? Is she _bored_? The problem with playing with new acquaintances is that it's harder to spot what's unusual when you don't know the entire scope of possible actions -- but what's unusual, I realize, is that someone's swiped the king of diamonds I left out as bait while I wasn't looking, and replaced it with the king of hearts. Stygia rules are over. Talking is prohibited again.

I play the nine of clubs.

Jack of clubs, from Zhune, and this time he knows what to say: "The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy." Reference: the War. He's returned to that bland serenity that broadcasts _Djinn_ like a shortwave radio.

Madeline plays the seven of clubs, saying to the player on her right -- Leo -- the ritual "Have a nice day!" and presenting her with an extra card from the draw pile to complete the play. And then she turns back to Zhune, and I only realize that she hasn't figured out that someone has swiped the diamonds and we are no longer under Stygia rules and cannot speak, even to lie, when she says to him, "Don't you think that weapons are only as useful as their wielders?"

When the Dealer breaks a rule, in Mao, the game ends if the players can recognize that the rule has been broken and prove it.

The ritual speech is "Even Princes are subject to the Rules," and I am saying it before I can second-guess the decision to enforce a loss on my partner's part -- it is her mistake, after all, and even we are not infallible. I will not _cover_. Covering would send a message I do not particularly desire to send, one that would imply that I'd choose my partner over the sanctity of the Word we share.

Zhune is a half-second behind me. Same speech. He _does_ know the game. (And I suspect it's him who swapped the diamonds for hearts.)

Madeline spits an entirely surprised curse at me in Helltongue, and then folds her hand like a fan, graceful and apologetic. "I concede," she says, a bit annoyed, but I'll allow her annoyance, "the deal is yours."

"Good game," I say, which it was, or at least I learned something about individual playstyle, and have communicated necessary constraints. "We should do it again sometime."

My partner's expression is mostly arch, frustrated displeasure. Madeline doesn't like making mistakes in public. She's quite protective of her own reputation that way. I understand. Mistakes are -- unpleasant. If we were alone I'd be entirely comforting.

We are not alone. Leo says to Madeline, as blithe and unpleasantly cheerful as she was back before we started playing, "Now that we _know each other_ so much better, want to hit the hotel bar for drinks before they close?"

"What a fantastic idea," Madeline says, before I can even interrupt. She's on her feet in a single fluid motion, hands extended down for Leo's. "I would _love_ to get a drink!"

Leo takes the offered hand up, and now my partner is holding hands with a frustrated, clever Magpie, and about to take her off to go get drunk against what is likely her partner's express orders.

It is possible I have walked into this. Or been led into this.

"Don't worry," Madeline says to Zhune, "I'll bring her back!"

"By curfew, please," Zhune replies, milk-mild.

Leo offers her partner a cheerful obscene gesture with the hand my partner hasn't got safely hold of, and then the two of them spill out into the hotel hallway. I'm alone with the Djinn and the remains of a Mao game and a mission to complete.

I am treating him like an opponent. This might be a problem.


	10. An Interlude, In Which My Partner Makes New Friends

Under the circumstances, Zhune decided that he had handled matters as well as could be expected, or possibly a little better. There were disadvantages to letting Leah out of his sight for more than five minutes at a time, few of which he expected to come up when a Gamester was at her side and hand-in-hand. (Which was not...a problem. Merely a situation to keep an eye on, for the benefit of a much younger partner who had no idea how these sorts of things worked. The modern brand of propaganda did its part to warn the young of the general dangers of the Game, and then did its other part to confuse the situation, and it was his job to build on the one by correcting the misinformation of the other.) More to the point, this saved him the trouble of finding an excuse to isolate the more interesting Player for conversation.

He gathered up the scattered cards along with the draw pile, and begin to sort them out. Rows of suits by number. It was an affectation of the younger members of the Game to focus on entertainment and revelation options that required fiddly equipment produced by strangers in factories, which in some ways he couldn’t approve of. Nothing that important ought to depend on what had been made out of your sight by those you didn’t know. But all Words shifted with time, and the Game had shifted away from blood and breath and feet pounding across stone courtyards towards dice and cards and boards printed with lines. So be it. Perhaps it was an effective response to the way the other parts of Hell changed their tactics in each era, to shift from the physical towards the purely mental, and to games where no component but the players themselves was particularly interesting or valuable.

The Habbalite Player set to the sorting of cards as well. One of a pair that cared deeply about this particular set of games, or even this game specifically--difficult to distinguish the set and its completely contained subset, on limited information--which did not mean they were young, but did suggest it. Some people drifted to the latest fad and the rising Words of power as the centuries shifted; it was as valid a survival trait as holding fast to the original source of one’s metaphor. But he did not think they had come to this game late in life.

If the Habbalite had learned Mao as late in life as he had, or even after a few short centuries of obsession with a different game, she would not have called out the dealer before he did. She not only knew the game better than he did--to be expected of anyone from the Game in this era--but she knew it bone deep, in a way he could not and would not.

Entirely acceptable. She didn’t have Theft stitched into her the way he did, and he knew which of the two he’d bet on in the end of days.

He considered his opening moves, though not for long. Card-sorting went quickly with two sets of hands, and the longer he held silent the more emphasis it gave to his first comment. Best to start with something a little more generous than the Player would expect (or deserve), and thus see how she reacted to a deliberate concession. (Something which was not always a trap. And he might as well see how much she had figured him out, because he would think rather poorly of her if she acted as if it were actual weakness on his part.)

“When did you notice the card swap?” he asked, and laid the exact card he had stolen down into place on its sequence.

She set out a sequence of spades. "When your partner switched rule-sets.” Her attention moved to him for long enough that he could be sure she did not think he was showing any weakness, briefly enough that she wanted him to know--and to know that she was not worried, beyond the default wariness that any long-lived Gamester developed. “Your swap, her reaction, yes?"

“Yes.” He had three each of all the face cards in hearts, and started the three respective stacks for the sorted decks. “She knows how to follow a lead, once the game is sufficiently interesting.” It was one of the many forgivable failings of the young, to only give full attention to what was entertaining.

Those who were less young knew how to make their own entertainment.

“I’ve noticed.” If that folly of the young was anything other than a source of entertainment for her, that didn’t make it into her voice. (He revised his estimation of her age, but tentatively. She might be amused at such things for different reasons than he was.) "Who taught you to play?" The Habbalite’s hands moved briskly and precisely across the cards.

There was an excellent chance that she would have made a good Magpie, given the right circumstances, but that was a riskier pull than he had the time or space to make. Especially with an uncooperative partner, and there was no way to make Leah cooperative on this point without spending more earned power in the relationship than he cared to expend. Still. There were ways to score entertaining points without outright stealing a person.

“A Shedite formerly of the Game,” he said, because telling the truth was often amusing to him--doubly so when speaking to people who expected evasions and lies--and because it would be useful to see if she were anything other than politely neutral to the information.

"At least it hadn't entirely abandoned its heritage. Wherever you ran into it."

She had finished with the spades, and so he sorted those out into their three stacks, half a breath of distraction while he considered where her weaknesses might lie. Certainly not in fanatical, reflexive loyalty to the cause, which was a relief. That sort of flaw was simple to deal with, and therefore tedious.

There was no such thing as a smooth, flawless Gamester. Agreeing to play the game was itself a weakness. But some flaws weren’t worth cracking wider except as part of a greater goal. Thus, he might as well not bother with searching for any of the sort he wouldn’t enjoy increasing. (Something he should have thought of before testing the obvious one? Perhaps. But that one tended to override all others, so it was just as well to sort it out immediately rather than wasting his time on other tests if that one was going to be in the way.)

“Most don’t,” he said, a sufficiently vague statement to close off that line of conversation to anything but dedicated questioning. “Do we need to worry about what those two will get up to without supervision?”

"It depends on what you'd worry about," said the Habbalite. He’d hoped for a little more, without expecting to get it. The Game would not send overly vulnerable Players into this situation unless it was a planned failure, and he’d had enough time already to be nearly sure that was not the case.

“Excessive enthusiasm,” Zhune said. He dropped the three sorted decks back into their boxes, and offered the stack to the Habbalite.

The stacks disappeared into the Player’s coat in a move too fast and clean for him to follow the specifics, though he knew how to do the same himself. Had she been giving any encouragement in words or voice, he would have thought it a deliberate baited trap: see how this Servitor of the Game would do so well in Theft, and how you ought to extend yourself beyond the realm of safety to attempt to make that happen. But what she said was, “Madchen's enthusiastic enough. 'Excessive' depends on the situation. And your definition of the term."

“They probably won’t set the Tether on fire,” Zhune said. “That would be sloppy. And if they want to get drunk, it’s careless, but not an entirely unprofessional choice with this many hours to go.” He did not think Leah was so charmed by a pretty Balseraph--of the Game, in particular--to drink heavily, but it might be useful to let the others think it was a possibility.

The Habbalite said archly, “I'm glad to hear that Sheol habits are sufficiently more mutable than Hadean ones that you've gotten that down to _probably_ won't set the Tether on fire."

It was reassuring to see that they had done a proper level of research. Playing against the ignorant was sometimes harder than playing against the well-informed, especially in short-term games where the usual froth of randomness and circumstance didn’t have time to average out.

And because it was sometimes entertaining to watch other people worry, he said, “Probably,” as blandly as ever. (There was no need to go into the details of certain agreements he’d made with his partner.) “Since she’s with your partner, I assume your Madeline can keep an eye out for matches and lighter fluid.”

"Incendiaries are not her usual modus operandi. She'd notice." The Habbalite was not given (so far) to dramatic expressiveness, unlike many of her Band, but that smile was rueful and proud all at once. The two adults, discussing the delightful, irresponsible children, who were responsible enough, perhaps, to be left alone for a while longer. "What happens after she notices depends on whether she likes your Calabite or not."

That was a warning he could appreciate. And a sign to start looking for a different gap in the defenses, though not, he decided, a deliberate signal as such. Merely enough information that he knew it was time to change tactics.

“What’s her policy for the ones she likes?” He could not pull off _breezy_ around these people the way Leah did. It didn’t sit well with him, and they were not the kind of people who would be usefully distracted or annoyed by the pretense. But neither did he have to imply a level of concern which was not there. His stubborn little Calabite would call for help if any real danger arrived, and otherwise lead her chosen Player down an entertaining rabbit trail of diversion mixed with practical focus on the work. Acceptable regardless.

The Habbalite was admirably brisk with her answer. "Being disappointed when she finds it necessary to question them, rather than pleased with the prospect."

Zhune stood up, and decided it would be neither useful nor welcome to offer her a hand in turn. Too much echo of what the younger set had been doing a moment ago. “She must either like very few people, or be frequently disappointed.” He turned his back on the Habbalite, and checked the contents of the room’s minibar. The same as the last time he had checked, which was expected, but a small reassurance. He had enough to track without the second Gamester deciding to make some repeated point about her ability to steal things from the room. She was also an interesting prospect, but he had learned a very long time ago the virtues of _focus_.

Besides, he wanted to see what Leah could do with her. Or see what Leah would learn, if she insisted on being entirely reactive to the Gamesters instead of trying her hand at some more deliberate plays.

The Gamester got to her feet. Quiet as one trained in careful movement, not so silent as one attempting pure stealth. "Disappointment is the natural condition of the intelligent," she said, footsteps moving across the room to the window. Her motion there was a blur at the edge of his peripheral vision, more impression than detail. Pulling back a corner of the curtain, her back to him, inspection of the view (parking lot, road, blank-windowed facing building and skeletal trees) through the window. Less detail now in the winter evening, with only the deliberate lights attempting to focus one’s attention on the places the mortals felt were important. Their little zones of safety and comfort in the darkness.

“Disappointment,” Zhune said, and let his own growing amusement shine through--brightly enough to cover the satisfaction, perhaps--”is the natural condition of the Gamester. Though I suppose the two correlate enough to imply causation.”

He could not remember which Habbalite Prince the Punishers of his acquaintance had stared at from afar, back when he was young. That Band was prone to meteoric rise and sudden disaster, and the age of the latest two Princes of their kind should be proof enough of that even to those who knew nothing of history. This Servitor of the Game did not seem much interested in that direction, and he hoped he was right, because he had used up the entertainment value of that set of arguments and motivations and ways to harass the least angelic of all Bands a good century ago.

As there was no symbolic resonance immediately available to him in the ingredients of the bar--or none that he found useful to choose--he made two gin and tonics, and set one aside for Vivienne, if she cared to take it.

Which she did. He had set it far enough away that it was not bait to be within his arm’s reach, by the time he’d found a comfortable place to settle with his own glass, and when she found a place to settle with hers, it was at the window itself. No real possibility of snipers in this job, and she was no Calabite to be finding an easy exit, but her position there was precise. Meaningful, in a way he had not yet identified. Not so deliberate that he was missing significant information not to pick it up. (If it was important, she would send the same signal on another channel. Never trust all your information to one line of contact. It is the source of plots for novels and failed missions. Redundancy is not a failure of the system, but its defense.) Perhaps the sort of thing Leah would have noticed, but if Leah were in the room this precise conversation would not be happening, and the perfect was the bright-smiling enemy of the good.

Vivienne drank from her glass, and asked, “Have you known enough of us to tell?”

He shrugged with one shoulder. Not quite dismissive, because this was no time to prompt honest defensive reactions. “Enough to draw a few conclusions. Working for Theft brings a man into contact with all sorts of Servitors of the Game, by the nature of the work, as well as the occasional intelligent sort who does not work for either Word.”

She did not watch him directly. (First level of meaning: that she was not afraid of him. But of course. Second: that she controlled the direction of attention in the room. Allowable. Third: beyond relevance at this stage, and thus not worth considering.) "All in a day's honest work for a man like yourself, surely,” she said, without the acidity some might have added.

It was rather pleasing, really, that she trusted him to catch the implication without spelling it out.

“Honesty is for Seraphim,” Zhune said, and punctuated that with a sip of his drink, because it was not a sufficiently meaningful statement to need any further contemplation. (Leah still had the novice move of leaving pauses after meaningful statements, to give people a moment to dwell on the significance. Better to let them be distracted by the secondary meanings while you were already speaking again.) “And dodging the Game is a waste of time for people who have done their work properly. I find it more efficient to let the Players catch up and have their say, if they’re so committed to the matter.”

"A marvelous presumption of righteousness on your part, _allowing_ us to come to you when our commitment demands," said Vivienne, "but as you've not been caught out yet, I assume I can grant you a temporary benefit of the doubt." Her smile was sharp, and reminded him with a perfect, delightful clarity of how Leah smiled when she was angry.

“You can grant whatever you like,” Zhune said, and immediately decided that there had been a level too far of condescension in that one. Not a significant error, but one he would do well not to repeat. “I would hardly presume to tell the Game what to think of me.” He knew entirely how it looked when he drank gin, or stood at this angle, and he did not much mind what conclusions she might be coming to from the way he watched her quite directly.

A topic to return to, once he’d decided how to press the point. It was too early in the game to use up all the openings. Maybe if they were in the same place for an evening--but they had work yet to do. A few days, at the least. And he could risk more interesting plays after the core of the job was safely done and entrusted to his partner’s nervous care. (No fault, that: she was young enough to be variously fallible, clever enough to know it, and some nerves while playing with the Game for the first time were only appropriate. False confidence could get her into trouble he would not enjoy extracting her from.)

"How kind of you to allow us to presume instead," she said, with gentle condescension to match his.

He wondered idly if Leah were having half as much fun downstairs, and if she were following her chosen Player as closely as this one was following him. Easily corrected, if so.

“Client privilege,” he said. _You have come to us for help, and we haven’t forgotten this._ “Should we do some work on our half of tomorrow’s assignment? I realize Theft has a reputation for last-minute improvisation, but we do try to save that for emergencies and personal whims.”

"I wouldn't want to force you into exercising a personal whim," said the Habbalite. "So we ought to get started."

If he had laughed, it would have required explanation, or raised the wrong sort of suspicion. He allowed himself a small, pleasant smile, and moved on to the more work-focused portion of the evening.


	11. Interlude: Both Players Must Play Five Hands of Five Cards Simultaneously

As hotel bars in states she'd never been to before went, Maddy thought this one was perfectly sufficient. Inviting, even, if all that was required for invitation was a nice deep booth with plush leather banquettes and a bartender who mixed pina coladas with _real pineapple slices_ (even in February!) propped on the rim. Oh, and who left her alone afterward.

Alone except for her very own Magpie, all isolate and practically castled into the booth with a bottle of beer in front of her. Leo wasn't _surprisingly_ good company. Maddy had bet she'd be good company all along, and she was right. Which she usually was, so that wasn't exactly a point in Leo's favor, just a point in Maddy's own sensible judgment of character, but the fact remained that she was having an _excellent time_ , now that she'd removed Leo from her partner.

(And removed herself from her own partner, but she'd forgive Vee soon enough. It was embarrassing, that's all, to get called on a mistake in front of, well. _Strangers_. Strangers who weren't even Servitors of the most dread and glorious lord of the Game, and thus didn't even have the instinctive sense to know _why_ it was embarrassing. Not on the really deep gut-level, where it stung.)

But she and Leo had made a gentleman's agreement to not talk about the card game in the first minute they'd been in this very nice booth together, and had extended it amicably to not talking about their partners either sometime between minute two and minute three. Then the bartender had brought them beer and pina colada, and they'd had a nice chat about -- well, beer, since Leo didn't drink pina coladas, which was just a failure of imagination, but Maddy guessed that in Theft it was more important to not look like you enjoy frivolous fun Corporeal things when your vessel was as tiny and cute and spiky-haired as Leo's vessel was. Which just confirmed all of her bad opinions about Magpies, if she was being strictly honest, which she was. 

Now they had moved on to the weather, with a detour into whether it was ever useful to have a Habbalite of Theft around to tell you about the weather (Maddy continued to think that it would be, if your weather was like this weather, with snow and snowlike muck everywhere, but she'd never had to deal with one so maybe Leo was right that it simply wasn't worth the trouble), and then _back_ to the weather because Maddy remembered quite well that Leo didn't like Habbalah and she wasn't about to make her talk about why, not the first time she _ever_ got her alone. That was a third-session sort of question. Always was.

She propped her chin on her hands and sucked up more coconut slush through the straw. It was a yellow bendy straw, to match the pineapple. It was more than a little gratifying to watch Leo watch her mouth and her hands. She wasn't even _trying_. Much. Some people just had excellent taste, that's all.

"-- so then we drove to Atlanta with the files in the back of Vivienne's Mercedes but that was only five hours," she said to Leo. "And files are not the same as a whole person! At least not metaphorically. How long do you think the drive to Vegas will be from here?"

"A full day, allowing for weather." She stopped to think about it more closely. "Unless we load up on gas beforehand, so that we don’t have to stop, and break the speed limit the whole way. Which is more fun but less practical, like so many things in life."

"Breaking the speed limit is against the law," Maddy told her. Which of course she knew -- clever Magpie, lots of Ethereal Forces, totally obvious! -- but it was important that she also knew that breaking the law was a bad idea, but not _such_ a bad idea that Gamesters never did it, if it was to serve the greater law. So she said it with every inch of conviction she had, and then she said, "Unless it's very important to be impractical."

"Breaking the law is my job," Leo said, with almost as much conviction -- that was fine, she was a Thief, and even if Thieves were immoral, conniving, and parasitic on the body of all Hell arrayed for resistance against the oppressive power of Heaven, they were _supposed_ to be that way, and it was perfectly allowable for this one to admit it. She made a little dramatic hand gesture around the beer. "And doing my job is always very important, so there we go."

Maddy approved. Even Thieves could have a work ethic! She would put this into a report. It was important to remember, when other Players would need to compile information on how Theft _really_ worked. "You shouldn't worry," she told Leo. "We want to do our job just as much. Maybe more! Everything will be fine as long as everyone remembers that." She made sure to smile, and genuinely, not false at all. Leo was _good_ company. Just because she was also a Thief didn't mean she should spend an entire assignment waiting to be called in for questioning _unreasonably_.

She was dry verging on ironic when she said "I'll try to keep that in mind," and Maddy was about to be disappointed (mostly in herself, for thinking that reassurance ever helped with hostile Words, didn't she know better by now? But it was so nice to live in hope of a harmonious and consistently obedient population --) when Leo went on, saying, "What's the most important part of your job?"

"This job, or every job?"

"Both," she said, which was cheating, "Especially if they're not the same thing." Cheating in the best way! And with genuine interest, all gamine-blue eyes over that beer, like she'd never had a real opportunity to ask a Gamester questions before. (Maybe Hades should do more community outreach in Stygia. It was only just over the border, and it might help so much.)

Maddy considered, and told the truth. She tried to tell the truth _almost_ always, especially when she believed it. "This job? Not getting caught. Every job? Fixing broken things and broken people and making them _right_ again. No matter what you have to do to get there."

Her chin went on her hands and her elbows went on the table and she was so _intent_ , it was absolutely gratifying. "How do you figure out what's broken?" she said, and, well. 

Maddy wasn't even _pushing_ and she got there all by herself.

"Sometimes you just know," Maddy said, which wasn't very fair to Leo, because Leo hadn't had the opportunity to be a Balseraph and a Servitor of the Game and to grow up in Hades and you couldn't expect a person to just understand the Rules if no one had ever taught them any, so she kept going, "but most of the time you take everything you know to be _allowed_ and everything you know to be _necessary_ and then remember that nothing is fair but everything's explainable, and it's pretty straightforward after that. You're a Thief. Why do you want to know?"

She really thought about it, long enough to drink more of her beer before she said anything at all. "Because what’s considered broken--the rules are obscure and obscured, which implies that the _purpose_ isn’t to allow the greatest possible number of people to be in compliance, but to force the greatest possible number of people to reach a broken state. But if the most important part of the job is to identify and _fix_ what’s broken, then of course it makes sense that the whole system is designed to provide as much breakage as possible. It’s a target-rich environment."

Quite vividly, Maddy imagined taking her down the Vegas Tether with the target and bringing her back to Hades where they could have this conversation for a _long time_. Years, maybe. Until they didn't need to have it anymore. She should ask Vivienne if operational parameters would extend that far. (Or she should wait until Vivienne would have to accede to the inevitable logic of adjusting the parameters suitably.) "The _system_ isn't broken, Leo," she said. "People are broken. People are demons, mostly, and demons are terribly selfish and cruel and unpleasant, like we're supposed to be, and the Rules -- the thing you call the system -- they account for that. Which is why it looks like the system promotes breakage, to you. You're too far outside."

"Too far outside, or too far inside?" Leo had gone all internal-focused, all _thinking_ -focused, and if that meant she wasn't as devotedly fixated on Maddy just this moment that was entirely fine. It was such a _shame_ that a person like this had been languishing for all this time in Words that would never help her answer these important questions. But at least she was young, if the information-brokers had been right, and there was probably lots and lots of time left for her. "I’m never sure if it’s fish and bicycles or fish and water. All of the really nuanced analysis techniques for 'selfish' and so forth are human-designed, and that makes them inherently flawed for application to what’s natural in demons. Though I’m not sure there’s any escaping that influence entirely, with how Words work."

"Not to sound all Technologist about it," Maddy explained, "but it's a giant feedback loop, or at least I've always thought so; we're selfish because we're made of Words and humans drive Words to make us more selfish and then we meet out appropriate punishment to those humans. Nothing's fair and everything's explicable. That can be rule one, if you like."

Leo did _not_ immediately agree that yes, this could definitely be rule one, and also what was rule two, and when can we go somewhere nicer than South Dakota, like possibly a lovely cafe across from the Halls of Loyalty, and discuss the first two rules and all the rules that'd come after until such a moment as when Maddy could invoke her Prince and possibly get that Knighthood she'd been thinking would be a pleasant goal this century as a reward for stealing a _whole Magpie_. (Not even just files on one! People were much more interesting than files. Less predictable.)

Leo was being less predictable now. She put back on that blithe Theft mask, the _I don't play cards_ mask, and drank a long swallow of beer and said "Maybe it’s a better conversation for when we don’t have so much work to do," which was unfortunately true, but very disappointing, except for the part where Maddy found herself realizing that she'd just been telling a _Magpie_ all about how to think like a Gamester and this Magpie was _smart_ and probably sneaky and it was just barely plausible that Maddy was a little, well. Off her game. Because she was frustrated with Vivienne and the whole mess with playing Mao and also she was going to run out of pina colada and it was very bad form to get drunk on assignment even if it'd be nice so she couldn't order a new one. Perfectly good reasons.

"We should figure out how we want to make this work," Leo was saying. "Unless we’re going to take the easy route and just blow up the Seneschal’s house and get him pinned down with an arson charge for the day." She waved a hand, see-saw balance: fun, or _too much fun_?

"Well okay," Maddy said. "But you'll have to tell me how!"

Leo looked a little surprised -- she must be _so_ used to having her partner shoot down ideas like that, and Maddy could sympathize, except they weren't talking about partners, and besides, it was only them here in the bar, and she'd _never_ blown anything up before, and it seemed like the sort of thing a person should know how to do. So she waited, and after just a breath's worth of time, Leo just _explained_ , like someone in the last fifteen minutes of an interrogation, when they really _wanted_ to be helpful, finally. "Well, do we want to go with explosives or bog-standard accelerants? I could probably kludge together the former overnight if we can find a twenty-four hour box store and loot a place that sells fertilizer. Too fiddly to look for a demolition supplies place in a backwater city like this one. Accelerants are dirt simple, since all we need is the box store, or even a series of convenience stores in a pinch. Main advantage of the latter is that it looks less odd, but then, the former gets enough terrorism suspicion to get the man held longer. Though it’d help if he wasn’t white. Main advantage of the former is...you know."

"If we blow up his house and get him arrested for arson," said Maddy, "then don't we want to make it all -- dramatic? I mean! Who would just use _accelerants_ to commit insurance fraud. Not if you wanted the whole house to come down, right? And if _I_ was committing insurance fraud, not that I ever would, but if I was, and I was a white guy, I'd pick something that _looked_ like terrorism so the police would never think to arrest me, I'm an upstanding American citizen." She smiled. This was her favorite part. "But I'll tell the police the _real truth_. False terrorism scares are bad for the Department of Homeland Security! There was a briefing."

"Explosives it is," said Leo, with admirable decisiveness and pleasure. Maddy considered whether it had been Fire which had been most culturally formative for her, rather than Theft. (She could leave out the War. People went in one side and out the other of the War all the time.) "We’d better get moving. Places to go, supplies to assemble…" Just a small regretful pause. "... partners to inform, since we’re such responsible, professional people. Maybe we can leave them a note. I’m sure they’ll understand that we’re very...proactive people."

"We are very responsible and professional," Maddy agreed, fishing her cellphone out of her pocket and beginning to compose an appropriate missive. "I'll just send Vivienne a text, and you text your Djinn, and that'll be just fine."

"I don't have a phone," said Leo, shrugging -- oh, _Calabite_ , but Maddy had been almost sure that one with as many Ethereal Forces as Leo seemed to have would just keep a whole lot of disposable ones? -- "Zhune will figure it out. He’s good at that sort of thing."

Maddy sent her text, and then sent a follow-up, with a whole lot of less-than-three signs, just so Vee knew she wasn't _really_ mad, not the long-term kind. "He's your partner," she said. "Come on, we have to _find_ a fertilizer place, and you have to teach me how to rob it."


	12. In Which I Have More Fun Than Is Entirely Wise

The easiest way to blow up anything at all, in my opinion, begins with belonging to an actual licensed demolition company. Maybe it doesn’t have the thrill of law-breaking, but there’s something to be said for the ability to just buy explosives the way you do copper pipe or number two pencils for the office because your boss has decided that everyone has to standardize their writing implements again. (Though now that I think about it, Ylva preferred number threes, maybe just for the sake of annoying everyone.) The second easiest way involves contacts with arms dealers.

We are not doing this the easy way. We are doing this the Theft way, which means we spend a good six hours of the evening acquiring everything we need and putting it together. For the sake of breaking up the trail, I steal a fresh car for the process.

Okay. So I mostly steal a fresh car because I would like to drive something that is not an SUV with a truckbed stapled to the back, given the choice. But it’s also a good sensible precaution for obscuring any investigation or pursuit. Near as I can figure from what Maddy said at the bar, all of us are working on some variant of Don’t Get Caught. Which means the last thing we want is Dark Humor tracking down any given pair of us to ask awkward questions.

Except I’m pretty sure that the Gamesters would be delighted to have that happen, so long as they thought it wouldn’t point immediately back to them, no matter how much fun Maddy is to spend time with. And let’s be honest, Zhune and I would _love_ to drop Dark Humor on them in turn, if not for the same hazard. (Would Dark Humor believe the Game, trying to pin this on Theft? Not sure. Dark Humor doesn’t like us at all, though not quite as aggressively as some Words do, but I think they like the Game even less.) So the safest plan all around is to make sure every part of what we’re doing has as little apparent connection to the next, beyond coincidence in timing, as possible.

It helps that Zhune and I don’t have any Roles to risk, and thus little in the way of pre-existing known habits (beyond “being Magpies”) to point back towards. The Gamesters must be--well, I would be halfway to a paranoia spiral by now, trying to do this sort of job while keeping a solid Role safe.

It’s always possible that these two don’t have any serious Roles, only solid ID, but it doesn’t seem likely. The Game loves Roles the way Theft loves cars.

And this particular Gamester, who I do not trust as far as I could shove her--probably not very, given my Corporeal Forces--is unnervingly delightful company the whole way through this process. If I were a bit more stupid, or a little better at lying to myself, I could almost believe that Zhune and I had picked up a receptive apprentice. It’s not just that I end up explaining how to pick the best car to steal--and how this varies based on what you want it for, and why, and the location and weather and so many other factors, that sort of turned into a lecture, but she wasn’t really interrupting--but that I realize, about halfway through my demonstration of homebrew explosive construction techniques, that I’m saying all this as if I expect her to, I don’t know, lend me a hand next time around.

There’s not going to be a next time around. Point the first: _Gamester_. Point the second: Zhune never lets me blow things up. (Point the second and a half, blowing something up is directly useful to this job but a little less than “clean,” even by the admittedly lax standards we Magpies have in that area.) She is not an apprentice, it is not a good idea to teach her any tricks I have that she doesn’t (even if I feel that the Game _should_ be teaching its people more about homebrew explosives on principle, just like everyone else ought to, and car theft principles are just good general knowledge to have), and, hell. I’m having fun.

Shouldn’t be. But I am.

"So," says Maddy, her fingers running along the edge of the last barrel we’ve shoved together--because she’s a fast enough learner that by the third set, she was giving me useful help, and don’t think I don’t appreciate that--"when you do this usually, how do you stop from blowing yourself up when you set them off?"

I am not about to admit that “usually” is a ways in the past. (I am also somewhat glad that there were no conveniently known weapons dealers in Sioux Falls, because I would rather not make this plan too reminiscent of the time I blew up a Game-owned law office. Awkward questions might arise.) “Remote detonation. Thus the Radio Shack stop.” I’m seated cross-legged atop one of the barrels, the wiring in my lap. “You can put things on a timer, but that works better in the movies than it does in real life. It’s only a good idea if you absolutely have to be doing something distracting right when the explosion goes off.” I twist the last two wires together, and toss her the detonator. “ _Ideally_ I’d instruct humans in the whole process, and avoid the disturbance, but that’s too much trouble in this case. And too much of a trail, unless we start murdering people, which is part of the whole...” I wave a hand vaguely, trying to figure out how to phrase it. “You know. Spiraling thing.”

"Murder is contraindicated at this time!" Maddy has a solid nod for this statement, tossing the detonator back and forth between her hands. "Besides, it's harder to get an arson charge to stick if there's also a homicide floating around. People get _so_ confused."

“Yes! That. They used to warn us about that, back when I was a kid. Where you start destroying things to cover up your responsibility for what you destroyed last, and then it ends with you standing in the middle of a city block that’s on fire and nobody is happy. Apparently it’s a common failure state for Calabim.” I slide down from the barrel, and glance at my current watch. “Did you two get a chance to work out the Seneschal’s habits when he’s not at the Tether? Since we need to make sure this goes off when he’s not _in_ his house.”

"Oh, he goes into the Tether at around ten in the morning. Ten-thirty to be safest, the Role he's got is classic Theater Person, and he'll pretend he has a reason to be up until three and sleep in.” She has a tiny sniff to go with the next statement. “It goes with the little beard and the all-black clothing choices."

“Little beards are never a good life choice.” There’s a Mercurian I know who is a prime example of this principle.

There is a Gamester sitting on my explosives, a job to do, and a partner waiting back at the hotel who is, for all I know, talking the other Gamester into bed. Unlikely, but well within the range of possibility. Zhune is exactly the sort of person who would try that. And get away with it.

Probably I should focus.

I mean. On the job.

"No, never," Maddy says, with a continually unnerving degree of sincerity, "but neither is becoming Seneschal of a Tether in South Dakota, so what can you expect?"

“No better than that from Dark Humor. Speaking of poor life choices.” And that is the point at which I should stop expressing an honest opinion about Words which I am supposed to be friendly towards. _Why_ we are supposed to play nice with Dark Humor, which does not return the favor, I have never understood. Even Zhune can’t give me a satisfactory explanation. But if it’s a bad idea to have a multi-hour chat and expository session with a Balseraph of the Game, it’s an even worse idea to start saying anything other than the Theft party line out loud.

Why couldn’t they have sent along an Impudite? Or a Djinn. I could’ve left a Djinn of the Game having a stare-off with my partner, and run off to get this sort of thing done myself. (Probably under those circumstances I would not be blowing up the Seneschal’s house, but if the Gamester thinks it’s okay, Zhune cannot possibly argue.) Balseraphs are distracting. Balseraphs are very good at making everything pleasant and plausible.

This had better not end with me standing inside that house while the explosives go off. Again.

"I can't bring myself to imagine why our target chose _there_ as his refuge of last resort." Maddy tosses the detonator back to me, with a little shake of her head that sends her hair swirling in a way that reminds me of Regan. Which should not be the case. Completely different hairstyles. (Very similar hair, though. And cheekbones.) "I just _despair_ of some people," she continues, and breaks into that entirely un-Game-like bright smile of hers. “But that's why we're helping him get where he belongs."

Could’ve done without a reminder of that part. Best to focus on just how much this person, if anyone ever could, deserves to be kidnapped by the Game and dragged off to one of their Tethers for--whatever happens next. Being turned into one of them? Probably. I can’t imagine he’ll enjoy that, but he came from Judgment, so maybe it’ll just be very...familiar. There are distinct organizational similarities there.

“I suppose if he had good judgment, he would’ve stuck with the Word of that name,” I say, and shrug like I do not care in the slightest. Judgment. Yes. Something I don’t care about. High on the list of things I do not wish to discuss with the Game. (When did _anything_ fall off that list? “Things I do not wish to discuss with the Game” should be a list that contains the whole of existence.) “Could be worse.”

"Not for him.” She is not smiling anymore. She is exactly as sincere as she was in any statement she has made all evening, but in this moment she is the Game, as I have never quite forgotten. “He should have come to us from the beginning."

I wonder if the Game even believes that other Words should exist in Hell, or if it feels, deep down, that every other Prince is a deviation from what should be. To different degrees, but all of them imperfect renditions of the true meaning of Hell.

Not that I’m going to ask that.

If Zhune were here beside me, I might make a comment about the Game needing Theft to help correct this error in the Impudite’s, well, judgment. My partner is not in this dark garage, nor on this block, nor in this half of the city. “Live and learn,” I say, and shrug that off again, turning away from her to double-check the wiring on this barrel. (Like I don’t already know that it’s done properly. I set it up myself. It would be better to not touch it again, and to stay a better distance away for this entire process.) “We’ll have to wait for the Seneschal to leave his place before we set these up. If we’d had time to pick up something compact, we could hide them well enough, but at this size? No. Did you want to head back to the hotel, or find something more entertaining to do?”

She pauses for some time to think about this question. Long enough that I’m starting to worry, especially given the last thing she said, when she breaks out with a chirpy, "You've been _so informative_ , Leo!” That sounds good. “Why should we stop sharing skills now?” That does not sound good. “…have you ever wired a room for sound?"

That. Well. That sounds like fun.

“Never,” I say. “If there’s a way to do it without all the equipment failing the first time I lay hands on it...”

"We can find out," Maddy says. "I've never shown a Calabite how before! It'll be an experiment." She gathers up bits of spare Radio Shack equipment; I always buy twice as much as I need, in case of mid-assembly failure. "Come on! Let's rent a terrible motel room where no one will notice if we take the ceiling panels down. It helps if you can open up the ceiling."

That sounds remarkably like a type of invitation that she isn’t actually making. And that I have better sense than to take her up on if she were.

But I do rather like opening up ceilings, and if we head back to the hotel there’s an excellent chance that someone will object to our elegant, straightforward, reliable plan for keeping the Seneschal distracted for the right few hours. (Probably Zhune. If Maddy’s Habbalite were going to object, the Balseraph wouldn’t have agreed to this plan in the first place.) “Terrible motel rooms are my favorite kind,” I say. We have hours to kill. I might as well pick up a new skill while I have nothing better to do with the time.


	13. A Player's Territory Consists Of All The Points The Player Has Either Surrounded Or Occupied

My phone chimes at me a few hours after midnight.

_Taking L out to get supplies for our side of the op!_ , says the text I have received from my partner. _dont worry everything within parameters! see u at rendezvous~ M_

Whatever plan I had planned for is definitely not the plan we're running. This is shaping up to be a Madeline special. I should have guessed. This entire assignment is far too peculiar, chancy, and unlike what we usually do for Madeline to be easily corralled into expected behavior patterns. 

It's not that she is ever deliberately disobedient. She'd disembowel her own vessel before being _deliberately_ disobedient. It is merely that her definitions of managing risk involve acquiring vast quantities of said risk.

It pays off, most of the time. When it doesn't, I pick up the pieces. That is part of what I'm for: setting up the board again when my partner has lost a game of fairy chess.

"My partner has kidnapped your partner," I say to Zhune, holding out the phone so that he can read the text. "Temporarily."

I am expecting him to be at least somewhat wary of a Gamester running off with his partner -- who I'd bet considerable Essence is also his attuned -- either wary or displeased or presenting a shell of bravado. What I get is mild amusement and a "So long as they're within parameters."

He is not afraid of us. That continues to be interesting. He hasn't been afraid of us this entire evening, not through a game of Mao or the subsequent several hours of conversation (the fact that he's an excellent conversational adversary is almost, but not entirely, beside the point). If he was the sort of Thief I'd meet in the standard course of events -- someone to capture and bring in for further questioning, or someone to be shunted out of the way of people attempting to do their jobs without the interference of petty crime and Molotov cocktails thrown from motorbikes -- I'd want to interrogate him on principle: he _should_ be afraid of us. But he is not the sort of Thief I meet in the standard course of events. He's hand-picked by his Prince for this job, just as I am, and we are stuck with one another until we deliver our target. I could, if I pushed, _make_ him afraid -- it is what my resonance is for, amongst other things -- but it nearly seems a waste of larger, more interesting opportunity.

I so rarely meet Magpies for whom 'competent' is not the _most_ flattering adjective I can muster, after all, and Zhune rates at least an 'intriguing'. (Whether or not that is an insult depends on which corner of Hades you hail from. Where I was trained, it is at best a backhanded compliment. It implies -- deception.)

"Madeline's definitions of parameters always include successful completion of the operation," I say. "Is that sufficient for you?"

"Probably," he says, which is sufficient acknowledgement on his part that he knows that we Players almost certainly have different victory conditions than he and his Calabite do. "If they make an unusual choice of how to distract the Seneschal, it shouldn’t be hard to adjust our half accordingly."

I wonder how often _his_ partner makes unusual choices. He seems to spend a great deal of time reeling her in -- or wants me to think he does.

"I doubt whatever they've got planned will be that inconvenient for us. We've already done the singing and dancing portion of this mission, and Madeline is many things, but not repetitive." I put my empty glass down on the end-table by the window. The shards of ice left in it are almost melted now. "Shall we, then? Targets to separate from their Stalkers, demons to intimidate. I do attempt to stay on schedule when working with Theft."

He waves me out the door, with a grace that is all insulting insinuation -- but we've been fencing like that all night, and I expected nothing else.

In the elevator down to the hotel parking garage, my phone buzzes again. The new text is a long string of heartmarks and nothing else, and I forebear showing _this_ one to the Djinn. Some Bands wouldn't understand such things.

* * *

I drive.

In this fashion we avoid embarrassing vessel death.

"I give you the laundrette of the damned," I tell Zhune, gesturing through the windshield at the building down the street. It's Madeline's term but it is so very apt. "Very dull. Exceptionally good at instilling existential ennui. And that's before you get to the comedy club Tether on top of it." Now we wait for the Seneschal to run out of it and give us free access to the remaining demons inside, and run a very fast con that is almost true: we are the Game, here to investigate some unpleasant rumors about your Seneschal, let us talk to each of you individually.

Zhune looks it over. "This will go better if our partners haven’t decided to set the place on fire after all," he says, with admirable neutrality -- and his is the one who came from Fire, mine has never been anything but what she is, "Though it could only improve the look of the place."

"I don't think it would burn," I say. "It's concrete and linoleum and washing machines straight out of Tartarus. Unless your partner is liable to bring in plastic explosives, and that would chase everyone out, not just the Seneschal."

"Probably not. That's seldom an aid to standard surveillance techniques." He's not quite smiling; he is wearing a pleasant expression. I would like to know what he's hiding underneath it. Displeasure at his partner? Displeasure at having to wait in a car all morning while surveilling a laundromat? Interest in surveilling the laundromat? (One must not ignore improbabilities; the unlikely is not impossible.) "Unless you're using exciting new methods this century?"

"Surveillance hasn't changed much in the past millenium, let alone the past century," I say, "unless you're terribly attached to scopes and audio bugs. But even those don't alter the theoretical approach. I assume you don't surveil things often."

"Rather frequently," he says. I could collect the understated condescension that drips off him in a jar and market it to Impudites. It makes me want to grit my teeth, and therefore I do not; I just look at him with my face kept carefully neutral, faintly inquisitive. He can't resist pushing farther -- and I know he's pushing me, and I will find out why -- "It's been a while since I watched the Game do surveillance from this close."

I can't imagine why not. It is _so very often_ that we let Magpies play along with us, after all. "Learning anything?" I say.

"Not yet," he says, quite nearly cheerful, and gestures like he is expecting me to perform a magic trick which will cause information to rain down on us from Hades itself. "Are you?"

I raise one eyebrow. "From you?"

He has the temerity to consider it, and the worse temerity to adopt the attitude of consideration so convincingly that I'm not sure he's bluffing. "It's early for that," he says, as if he's expecting this to alter as we get to know each other better. "In my experience the principles never change. They're occasionally obscured by new details."

This Djinn is too interesting to be left where he is, to moulder and decay with the rest of the scavengers from his Word -- if I didn't know better I'd be inclined to snatch him up and try to keep him for my own purposes like he was a shining thing and I was the magpie. But I am the Game and we do not go in for taking glittering prizes. There are better ways to manage assets than strict acquisition.

"The details are a screen," I say, "for the essential pattern of the operation. You observe; you wait; you disappear in full view. Surveillance is being part of the background radiation, and letting the target tell you what you need to know."

Zhune says, "Observer principle." It's not quite argumentation -- it's almost like cooperative discussion, which is a favorable sign. Complication is more interesting to work with. "We affect what we observe by the observation itself. Waiting for them to tell you what you want... Don’t you find that’s a longer wait than the job can accept, now and again?"

Of course he'd be concerned with speed; Theft and their peculiar dissonance condition. Or else he is insinuating that there's better methodology in _making_ the target tell you what you want. "If you're trying to avoid observer effects," I say, "influencing the target only trades you speed for locational accuracy."

"Locational accuracy can be found otherwise," he says, blandly amused -- as if I could forget he was a Djinn, with the way he holds himself, that particular watchful stillness -- all he'd need to do is lace his fingers together for me to think that he'd grown up watching our Prince for a model instead of his own. "Far be it from me to criticize infinite patience as a technique, but I find it more interesting to observe in a way that pushes events to where I want them."

I tilt my head as if I have just had an interesting idea rather than having been approaching it for several hours. "What sort of opportunities does Theft provide for manipulative observation?"

"The same the Game does," he says, not quite dismissive. "We control them differently. Everything we do in surveillance, so much as inhabiting a space, changes the set of possibilities for what happens during our surveillance period. You minimize the changes, we adjust them." Which is -- a simplification, but a simplification that he's approaching through some kind of deep-felt theory of Word, not through ignorance or incapacity and I let him keep talking. "Why wait six hours for the target to walk past, when you could leave a car in his usual parking space and make him walk right past you?" he asks. "Change the set of options available to the target during surveillance to what’s useful, both for gathering information and the rest of the job. It requires a more delicate touch, but if you can manage that, it’s more efficient."

If I'm going to offer him what I think I'm planning on offering I'll need to know how to phrase it from inside the Word he understands. _Steal from Theft itself; shift the game you're playing by knowing you're observing it._ I don't have the frame yet. The version I have -- the version he's giving me, whether he means to or not -- is merely uncomfortable to contemplate. 

In sleight of hand, a force is when the mark thinks they're picking a card at random or at will, but you've already selected the card for them, and offered it. It's a cheat (-- it's not a cheat, it's a cheat if I'm thinking like a Magpie, it's a _reframe_ if I'm thinking like I ought to be; I merely know a truer set of rules (there is only the one offered card) than the mark does (who thinks that the rules let him pick.)) It's a change in behavior. It's an offer with only one answer.

It's changing the set of options. Isn't it?

"You're the one who needs to remember efficiency over long-term effects," I say, "but given that constraint, you do have a point. But if your goal is to change the target's behavior -- and our goal is _often_ to do just that, Zhune, and in permanent ways -- then the change has to survive outside of the moment of interaction. Outside the surveillance. When the agent can't see and wants the target to continue a new pattern without intervention. Which is why we separate out information collection and information manipulation."

"Which is why we don't separate them," he says, and punctuates the correction with a hand-gesture which would be theatrical on anyone but a Djinn. (I am watching his hands and not his face. That's wrong. This is my con; I should be watching his face so I can mirror him properly.) "Begin as you mean to continue. Lay down the pattern while you can watch it and correct the reaction." (He is describing a forced draw that he expects the mark to repeat when it's unforced. As if he thinks he'd get away with it. As if he assumes that this is how Theft functions all the time. But then: to Theft, everyone's a mark, aren't they? Everyone, and all the time --) "No surveillance system is omniscient on any level. So we arrange matters as we like while we’re near, and let them give us what we want even in our absence."

And I think he's making me the same offer I'm making him. _Change sides while staying still. It won't even be that hard._

It is not _right_ that he is not a Player. (Is he? Is he a _test_? To see if I'll break, to see if I find Theft convincing at heart (at Heart, and I never want anyone's hands but my Prince's on my Heart, I'd swear to it at gunpoint or under threat of Force dissolution and not be lying) instead of just useful to emulate when the situation calls for bravado and sleight of hand?)

Cons are _confidence games_.

There hasn't been a Demon of Confidence Games in decades. The last one bounced back and forth between Valefor and Asmodeus until neither Prince wanted it, and one -- or the other -- the story isn't clear -- dismantled it.

I heard that story in a bar near the Stygian border.

I spend too much time in bars near the Stygian border.

I open my mouth to say something about omniscience and effective control, and don't get a chance because the Disturbance that shakes the Symphony is loud enough that I think I wouldn't be heard over it.

Someone has just done a _lot_ of physical damage to the corporeal world.

Zhune looks toward the source of the Disturbance, one clean fluid motion in which he has stopped paying me a single bit of attention. That rather confirms my initial suspicion: he thinks his partner has blown something up, despite all our reassurances to one another about explosives, and he is just concerned enough to be checking to see if what she blew up was in fact herself.

(Or my partner. Surely Madeline would have _gotten out of the way_.)

"So about those plastic explosives," I say.

He's still distracted when he says, "More likely something kit-bashed," but he's focused on me again by the time he arrives at "Unless your partner decided to provide."

I spread my hands, eloquent. "Madchen has her own resources. I truly do not put anything past her."

It is at approximately this moment when the Dark Humor Seneschal runs out of his laundrette/comedy establishment, clinging to his cellphone and brandishing his car keys and shouting what I am almost entirely sure is some variant on _what the fuck? _over and over again as he hurries down the street.__

__He's pretty funny. I'd give him a whole two points._ _

__Game on._ _


	14. In Which I Look On The Bright Side

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to let the enthusiastic Balseraph of the Game hold the trigger for the explosives we’ve set up. She’s excited about this the way I am, which should make me worry. It sort of does. That kind of enthusiasm should come from Firebugs and young Warriors, or maybe the wilder part of Theft, not the Game. They’re subtle. They’re careful.

They do not load a house up with a half dozen packs of explosives. And yet here we are, loitering casually in a quiet spot across the street and down the block, having done exactly that. (My Prince doesn’t seem like the sort to mess with us enough to send in ringers who aren’t Gamesters at all. Besides, Zhune would have noticed, and he--well, he probably would’ve told me.) Since I’m a responsible sort of Calabite, I’ve made sure that the person without the destructive resonance holds all the electronics, from remote trigger to the phone we can use to place the blame on the right person.

I’d spend some time feeling sorry for the Seneschal of that Tether, but he’s with Dark Humor. He surely deserves this.

“The best part of this plan,” I say, and this is a complete lie, “is that no one will _ever_ pin this job on Theft or the Game. Not with a mess like this in our wake.” I am itching to pull the trigger. Not quite time.

"It's awfully good cover," Maddy says. It keeps surprising me when she agrees with me. Probably some sort of cunning plan to get me to say more than I should--and if so, it’s working--but as long as I’m susceptible to this type of charm, I’ll enjoy the novelty. "Loud. Destructive. If I was investigating I'd blame it on Fire. Maybe even the Divine kind, they hate Dark Humor."

“I can’t imagine anything more fun, short of blaming it on Judgment.” I shove my hands in my pockets to ignore the itch of wanting to take the trigger out of her hands. She’s not going to hit it too soon. Now that we’re well out of the blast radius--all we’ll get where we’re standing is noise and warmth and wind, and a glorious visual--there’s not a lot of “too soon” available.

"Judgment isn't this loud,” she says serenely. “They'd feel too bad about it afterward."

“I never thought they dealt with guilt on a _personal_ level,” I say, and then remember to change the topic before I opine at too great a length about that particular Word. “What time is it?” My watch hasn’t stopped working yet, but I’m not sure it’s very accurate anymore, either.

She checks the time on her phone. The modern equivalent of checking a watch, and I’m not fond of this development. The more modern life depends on finicky electronics, the harder time I have keeping up and blending it. "Ten forty-five.” She looks up to meet my eyes, with a Balseraphic smile I could just fall into. (And will, if I’m an idiot about this. Professional focus. That’s the key.) “Shall we, Leo?”

She might be Julie, asking me to dance at a club. Except this is so, so much better.

“Let’s,” I say, and grin back at her. Sharp and brilliant. My best Valefor smile, because even if Theft’s usually quieter than this, oh, I think the Boss might find this setup entertaining. “The honor is all yours.”

Maddy holds up the box, tilted so that no theoretical passersby can see it, with her thumb on the switch. And takes my hand in hers.

Her hand squeezes mine, as she flicks the switch over.

There is a moment between the click from the box in her hand, and what happens next, which is so short I can’t assign it a fraction of a second, and so long it’s all the time I could possibly need. I’d almost forgotten this. It’s been _so long_ , and the anticipation is still there. The moment of knowing and waiting and readiness when I know exactly what’s about to happen, and it’s still a surprise every time.

The Seneschal’s house explodes. A wall of noise and bright light so quickly obscured by the cloud of smoke that there’s no real chance to appreciate the _sight_. Grit sprays through the air, carried by a hot wind even this weather can’t chill that fast, and I am laughing out loud, with the taste of dust on my tongue and my ears ringing from the sound.

“Lucifer First- _Fallen_ ,” Maddy whispers at my side, a single Helltongue word of profanity--and of near religious reverence, from how she’s saying it.

I turn towards her to say something, probably something inane like _Isn’t it perfect_ , but she’s already pivoting about on one foot to face me, almost nose to nose, and she wraps an arm around me--the trigger box pressed to the back of my head--and pulls me in for a kiss.

I was already tasting the explosion and this is even better. The trigger at my back and the smell of the fire around us and smoky grit between our lips, and who even cares about the mundane human noises rising up along the street? Better than cigarette smoke, better than Impudites or videos of explosions, this is the real thing and it’s _all ours_.

If only I could walk through the fire itself, and take her in there with me, this would be perfect.

Maddy remembers business before I do. She pulls back, and says brightly, “That was _amazing_. How long do you think before the police get here?”

“Maybe two minutes.” I glanced over the placement of stations in the city when I did the research yesterday. Force of habit as much as anything else. “Think we should call?” Think we could keep making out until they get here? There’s a car, we could get off the street before the crowd of onlookers gathers, and... I don’t say that part out loud.

"It's better if they show up and we're already observing the scene," Maddy says, like she’s letting me in on a secret Gamester technique. She hasn’t let go of my hand, and (terrible idea number three or four of the last five minutes alone) I don’t intend to let go quite yet. Though we should soon. Appearances. "Come on, let's stand in the middle of the street looking very concerned about public safety!"

We’re half a step out when she glances me over, and then says, “Wear my jacket, then we’ll both look like Feds.” Which is far from the most pointed commentary I’ve ever gotten on my wardrobe. (I think my jacket’s fine, but it’s maybe not very federal.)

So we swap jackets, and stand in the middle of the street looking so _very_ concerned about public safety. I put on my best voice of authority, which I perfected while playing substitute teacher to classrooms of snotty little human children, and by the time the police pull up, sirens blaring and lights spinning, we’ve cleared a parameter and I’m taking statements from onlookers.

Maddy sweeps up to the first police officer to step out of the car. "Don't worry!” she tells the woman. “I'm from the government."

And who’s going to argue with that? It’s true.


	15. You May Only Speak In Questions

The object of the current game is quite simple and direct. 

Our eventual target and his Stalker need to be separated, so that the target cannot be tracked when he abruptly becomes the victim of a smash-and-grab kidnapping. In order to achieve this victory condition, we are running the simplest con in the book: the one where we do our jobs as assigned.

The Game is here to investigate the loyalties of a small group of demons whose leader has just done something quite loud. Quite obvious. Just the sort of thing which brings down angels on a sleepy city where the War is snowstorm-cold. It is our job to find out if anyone _else_ has been quite as indiscreet as the Seneschal, and if so, whether they would be best dealt with in Hell or left here on the corporeal with a severe warning. And if, in the process, a young Djinn might find it opportune to ditch his current attuned -- well, people do all sorts of unusual things in extremis. 

It would help if _we_ were actually the Game.

Instead I have Zhune, who is not a Gamester, and who is not even -- not yet -- the agent of the Game within Theft that I'd like him to end up. At the moment he is a complication. That is _all_. I cannot depend on him like I would depend on Madeline, and his stipulation that his face not be revealed to the Comedians means that I am going to be expending Essence on this little adventure before we even get started.

If it were Madeline and I, we'd be playing Bad Cop and You Wish She Wasn't The Good Cop.

With Zhune, I go for something older. Less subtle. Something that runs so deep in the groundwater of the Game that even a Magpie should be able to follow along. (His Word and mine are not as different as either of our propaganda arms would present. This is not an orthodox or useful thought, unless I can use the similarities to bring Zhune along with me on this particular mission.) We will be still, and serene, and implacable. We will be that which watches and does not waver, that which hunts down and will never stop from pursuing. Interchangeable. Omnipresent. 

Masked.

"Time for disguises," I tell Zhune, and sing up Celestial Form.

I learned this Song when I only had seven Forces and the corporeal was an imagined dream, a goal so distant I had only begun to conceptualize what it might be like. It was the first reward I ever earned, and it wasn't a real reward: it was a lesson in the shape of one. The concept behind the song of Form is _mutability_ ; for Celestial Form, that mutability is both perceptive and physical. You see the change, and the change is real. While the Song lasts. When I had only seven Forces and barely knew how to sing the melody, Jahathanna had me stand in her office and change one thing. The length of my fingers. The color of my eyes. The width of my shoulders. One thing. Seperately. Each time. The Song was a reward, but the lesson was _control_.

I sing it now, and change our faces. Not to any new face, not to any face that any human or any vessel has ever had, but to perfectly generic visages, like the faces of mannequins. Symmetrical. Inhuman but only by fractions of an inch. Indescribable to a sketch artist. And a little bit distressing to look upon.

I grin at Zhune: the teeth-bared grin that I use in Hell. My entirely generic teeth are even and white. He looks at my new face, and then flicks his eyes to his own reflection in the passenger-side mirror. 

His combination of amusement and surprise is in fact easier to read on a face which isn't his. Interesting.

"Satisfied?" I ask.

"Quite," he says, and waits. It is the most Djinn he has been in hours; that calm, observant stillness. (I have never worked with a Djinn partner. My partners are flash and misdirection and intensity, so that I can be ever-present and tell our targets how to feel. Stillness is -- I think of deep pools, of cards kept up a sleeve in reserve.)

"Let us provide some Comedians with a worrisome afternoon," I say, and get out of the car. I will assume Zhune will follow me. "After all, they are all under suspicion, considering the actions of their Seneschal."

I walk into the laundromat as if the grimy linoleum would never dare to touch my immaculate shoes: spine straight, expression neutral even behind the Form mask. There are humans here, so I reach into my inside jacket pocket and withdraw my badge. (Does the NSA have jurisdiction here? It does because I am here, and my Role can bend this far.) Zhune is standing behind me like something out of a FBI propaganda reel, all sleek G-man in a suit.

"Everyone out," I say, holding the badge like it's a talisman. "We are from the federal government. This laundromat is under investigation for aiding and abetting foreign nationals."

There is a pause, while the humans read the frame I've prepared: two anonymous figures in suits, holding a symbol of authority, and invoking the magic words: _foreign nationals_. Their laundromat is now full of terrorists. I wait. If I wanted to expend the effort, I could read their fear with resonance, but I hardly need to. I can see it on their faces as they stand and hurry past us out the door.

When they're gone I tell Zhune to lock the door behind us and head up the stairs to the comedy club.

The position of the pieces on the opposing side is better than it could be: one Soldier taping Xes onto the stage in glow-in-the-dark tape, and no sign of the other Soldier or the dog. More importantly -- and I will not rule out luck, nor forget to take advantage of it when it favors me -- our target and his Stalker are visible, not hidden somewhere behind the scenes. The Djinn is in the first row of seats, but the Impudite sits on the lip of the stage with his legs dangling, chin in his hands and slumped elbows-to-knees, the posture of someone unlearning decades of good posture all at once. He flinches when we come through the door, high alert to sound -- paranoid, or skilled, or both -- and all of that casualness dissolves out of his spine. He's been a demon for less than three days, according to the dossier our Prince gave Madeline and me. It's natural that he'd still have the instincts of what he so recently was.

He leans down to say something to his Stalker. I imagine it sounds like: _we have company_.

The Soldier clambers off the stage and scurries down the aisle towards us. I let her get close enough that she meets my eyes (and my eyes are my own, even through the mask of Celestial Form), and then I reach out with my resonance and make her afraid. Not the kind of fear that makes a person cringe and beg and freeze up; anxious fear, the fear that makes the pulse race and palms sweat and shatters concentration. The Soldier's breathing goes shallow and her pupils dialate and I smile at her.

"We are here," I say, "on the orders of our Dread Prince, the Lord of the Game, to investigate some irregularities concerning your Seneschal. If you would be so kind as to answer our questions, it will go well for you."

"As well as is possible given the circumstances," says Zhune, behind me and to my left, implacable and clipped, and I have to bite back on a brief urge to grin at him; I cannot trust him and I cannot forget that but this is apparently a natural dynamic for him (and it has always been a natural dynamic for me. I was built for this.)

The Soldier, to her marginal credit, panics in a useful fashion. She states that she does not know what is going on. She professes her desire to be helpful. She claims that she possesses no seniority, and specifies that she is Hellsworn and not a demon and that she has no idea what her Seneschal gets up to when she isn't looking -- a slip, ignorance is no defense, she _ought_ to know, and I tell her that. She sits, very heavily, in the last row of auditorium seats, and presses her fingers over her mouth and gnaws at the cuticles when she isn't paying attention, and after no more than three minutes of questioning points shaky-handed at the Djinn and the Impudite waiting below us and confirms that they are not usual Tether staff and perhaps they might know something she doesn't.

I make her stand up -- when she doesn't manage it the first time, I gesture to Zhune and he pulls her to her feet with a grip just above the elbows that will probably leave brisk bruises -- and make her walk to them and tell them to come to us. One at a time.

The Impudite first. Daniel. If he is still going by that appellation.

I ask. I make him say it straight out: _for the record, state your name and who you serve_.

"Daniel, of Dark Humor," he says. There's a fractional pause, like he was considering giving me a different name, or was just deciding that this one was _funny_ enough to keep. I wonder if he's been asked before. 

"Very good," I say, and we get started. The point is not to convince Daniel that he has made a terrible mistake in choosing a Prince. That is not the point at all. This is the cover story, so no one suspects the Game is responsible for the kidnapping that will occur later this afternoon. This conversation is not an extraction. This is a theft.

(Is it? Should it be? I don't have time to consider the semantics. This is a deception, and an interrogation. That I'm sure of.)

I ask: _when did you arrive at this Tether?_ I ask: _if you are not usual staff, what do you do here. Give an account of your day. Give an account of how today is different from yesterday._ I ask: _what have you observed the Seneschal doing? What have you observed the Seneschal not doing that you think a Seneschal should do? What do you think a Seneschal should do, Daniel?_

When he balks, or hesitates -- and he does, all his instincts are too good, he has rules for answering questions and he is trying to not use them, and I almost envy whoever it is in the Vegas Tether who is going to get to break him to heel -- I let Zhune ask him questions ( _has anyone at this Tether acted in an inappropriate or unprofessional manner; might anyone be about to do so so; or perhaps has just done so; what about your friend, the Djinn, what does he know about the Seneschal?_ ) and I use my resonance to make him _doubt_.

Either he is used to doubting, or he shakes it off. I am not sure.

One way or the other, by the end of our conversation, he is pale and grit-teeth tense through the jaw. I think he's seen an interrogation before; I know he's _administered_ them, he was a Judge, but administration is different. You can't really learn how they feel until you're on the wrong side.

(If there is anything that the Grey City does well, it is making sure that we all know how a truly well-done interrogation feels.)

Zhune tells him, "We will return, naturally, to retrieve any guilty parties. I suggest you do not leave the Tether for at least twenty-four hours." 

Daniel almost manages to laugh. He stammers through, "As if I've left at all --" before I cut him off with a gesture, palm up, as if I am terribly bored; we are done with him for now. I do not let him talk to his Stalker -- I send him down one aisle and beckon the Djinn up the other. I'd rather have a room with two doors, but one works with the scenario one gets.

The Djinn comes slowly, like Djinn are wont to do. (Like Djinn who are not the one I'm standing next to are wont to do. He is imitating a Player with a panache that should be insulting and resolutely refuses to be anything but interesting; he is playing _me_ and I don't know how and that is infuriating. If he's trying to offer me Theft (can Theft be offered? Does he want to _steal_ me?), like I suspect he was back in the car when we spoke about surveillance, he shouldn't be doing it by acting like the epitome of a Game Djinn -- why would I want to give up working with people who can play this well? -- unless the point is that he is _not_ a Gamester and can imitate it, and thus so could I, if I betrayed my Prince --)

The Stalker arrives. I am focused now. This is, of the three, the trickiest play.

We begin the same way: _how long have you been here, what is unusual, tell us your suspicions about your superiors and your inferiors and your companions, confess --_ And then we change the script.

I ask, "Are you attuned to anyone in this Tether?" and I do not let him answer; I let him open his mouth (for truth or for a lie, it doesn't matter) and speak over him. "Are you perhaps attuned to the Seneschal?"

He is aiming for fervent denial, but we allow him to progress as far as "Are you kidding?" before I turn to Zhune and say, "It is traditional for Djinn to interfere with their attuned, after all," and wait to see if he'll pick up the lead or if he'll take it as pointed commentary. (It's the sort of pointed commentary that I'd deploy to a Djinn who was actually my partner; I wonder if he'll know.)

"Worse, in Dark Humor," he says, "they embarrass their attuned."

(If he was actually my partner, that would be clever. It's clever anyway. I am -- I will remember what feeling energized and infuriated at once is like, and use it later, give it to someone else. Or to Madeline, let her share it.)

"Perhaps you wanted to make the Seneschal take a hilarious pratfall," I say to the Djinn. He looks flabbergasted and horrified -- the Gamesters are stuck on this idea! And they have the wrong end of the stick, it's not the Seneschal I'm attuned to at all! -- but I am not going to let him talk, not yet. "Perhaps you did something to the Seneschal's house, and hoped he'd get -- caught -- in the blast radius? Perhaps you wanted to frame him? Perhaps you wanted to laugh at his expense?"

"No, I --"

I lean down and put one comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's perfectly understandable," I say. "You're only following the dictates of your Word. _Aren't you_?"

"But I'm not attuned to --"

"Are you not? That had better be true," I say, "because whoever is most guilty in this Tether is coming down to Hades when we return, and if it becomes necessary to question your attuned further, you will naturally accompany him."

"What?" says the Djinn.

"I didn't think you had problems hearing her," Zhune says. "Am I mistaken?"

"Simple words, Comedian: if we take you to Hades, we take your attuned with us; if we take your attuned, we also take you. It saves time. And paperwork."

Zhune says, "There is a lot of paperwork."

(As if he'd know.)

"I'm _not_ attuned --"

"Not to anyone? How lonely."

"How convenient," says Zhune.

I smile, my Form-masked face stretching. "Well. If that's true, all you have to worry about is you."

The Djinn swallows hard enough that the Adam's apple of his vessel bobs in a spasmodic gulp. I nod, encouragingly, and begin the questions again. Now they are the same as they were for the Soldier and for the Impudite, but they go on for longer, they repeat, and the emotion I have selected for the Djinn is _panic_ \-- brief, and intense, like a shock -- followed by enforced calm, and then panic again. Three times. Like waves, each worse than the last.

I have suspicions that Zhune is -- either interested, admiring, or concerned, watching me work. Perhaps he has not met many Habbalah who understand that emotion is a scalpel, not a blasting gel.

Even I would call what I've done to this Djinn elegant work. He _cannot_ stand when we are done -- physiological reaction, ephedrine dump, vessels are so easy -- his legs are rubber.

So we leave him there.

If he's still attuned to the Impudite, I will be exceptionally surprised. Almost every demon will save their own skin before being involved in someone else's political disaster. (Almost every demon. The exceptions are -- important, and very rarely come in the form of eight-Force Djinn of Dark Humor who fall apart for interrogators.)

"So," I say to Zhune as we walk out of the laundromat and into the bitter cold and thin sunlight of a February afternoon, "shall we go retrieve our partners?"

"They'll be expecting us," he says.

I certainly hope they are. Both of them. Together. And with no one anything worse than singed.


	16. In Which Everything Makes Sense

There's this whole gap, between the house going boom (what a _glorious_ sight that was, and I loved the feel of it even more, that wall of air slamming past to prove that it's more than a movie, with direction and temperature and sense of distance making it so clear what happened and where--but I shouldn't get away from myself) and when we actually do the grab. Enough time for our respective partners to go inside the Tether and figure out how to detach one clingy little Djinn from one deeply unlucky Impudite of Dark Humor. And since the amount of time this is supposed to take isn't very clear, we've arranged to meet up with them in a place that isn't going to kick us out if we linger for more than half an hour. Specifically, the bar next door to the Tether.

We have an appointment with our partners in something between twenty minutes and four hours--I can't imagine it'd take them longer than that--at which point this party moves down into the basement of the bar. Since Maddy has so helpfully informed the local authorities that the Seneschal is under suspicion of insurance fraud by means of arson, we don't have to worry about _him_ for a while. And we're...well. We're out of things to do until Zhune and Vivienne catch up.

I spent the entire drive to the bar explaining to Maddy that we're not usually this _loud_ , but that's good because it means no one is going to blame this on Theft, right? I may be a little...wired. Giddy. Something that has me jittery like I've been drinking Ash's espresso in coffee mug sizes, and it's not just the lingering taste of smoke at the back of my throat and the grit under my tongue.

It's not just the affectionate Balseraph. Maybe affectionate isn't the right word? She has that serene confidence that I associate with Regan after a job went well, or right in the middle of one that hadn't, ha, blown up in our faces yet. And if she's cheery and friendly and willing to pat my shoulder or nudge me to point something out, that doesn't actually _mean_ anything. I should probably dial back the glee a few notches and try not to project too much.

But it's been a very good day so far.

While it's not like I expected much from a bar that leans up against a laundromat, I'm somehow still disappointed to walk through the door of the place and find out it's not a complete dive. In another life, this might've been an indie coffee shop with terrible whiny music playing; in this life, it's a low-end bar that's too well-lit and corporate to be a _proper_ dive, with the exact same music playing that you find in any bar across the country, and TVs stationed in so many places that you can't escape the relentless flicker of news, cooking competitions, and whatever sport is currently in season.

I grab us a corner booth near the back. Shadowy corners are traditional for Theft, and probably for the spy-focused part of the Game, too. Besides, it gives us some space from the sad vestiges of the lunch crowd where we can talk more freely, ninety degrees to each other instead of in that awkwardly direct face to face.

I check the beer list, while Maddy flirts with the waiter who's come by to help us. He flirts right back, and why wouldn't he? Everyone with any sense finds Balseraphs attractive, which is not exactly the same as _liking_ them.

I wish I'd thought to get that explosion on video.

I get rid of the waiter by asking for the only IPA they have on draught (which says a lot about this bar right there), while Maddy asks for a tequila sunrise. Which she'll certainly get, even if it's not usually on offer, with how that waiter's looking at her. Being a Balseraph must be very useful at times.

"So," I tell Maddy, as the waiter dashes off to make her abomination of a drink, "that went well." I don't even put in an _I think_ for that statement, because never mind opinion, it _did_ go well. Without a hitch, which will probably worry me once I've come down from the explosion high far enough to worry about things again.

"It _did_." Her smile is as brilliant as an Impudite's. "It went exactly as planned! It's so nice when that happens."

"Hey, there's fun to be had in improvising," I say, mostly out of a vague desire to defend Theft against the implied criticism from the forces of order. The vague desire doesn't last very long. "But it's more fun to just have the plan _work_. Especially when it's a plan where things happen, instead of a lot of standing around waiting for other people to do things." I'd rather be having this conversation in the car right now, and feel like I'm going somewhere, but I can wait for our partners. Maybe they'll be snappy.

"We improvised on the planning itself." She makes a good point, and I think she caught some of what I meant in that first statement. Best to remember that the Game sends _clever_ people out for inter-Word work. "Which is a good way to make things happen. And make them happen _correctly_."

"Correctly being the important point, because for some reason supervisors never take 'I failed at the job, but really exciting things happened along the way!' as a valid excuse. More's the pity." I have to shut up for the introduction of beer and cocktail to our table, and assuring him that we're good at the moment, we'll let him know if we need anything else, yes, we know how to flag him down, thanks, thanks, _thanks and goodbye_.

Maddy gives me a sympathetic kind of look. "Having to redefine your victory conditions on the fly is never pleasant," she agrees. "Especially right in front of higher authorities." That's about to give me terrible flashbacks to the time my Prince asked me to grade my own performance for him. "But I think you're doing fine on this job; I've learned all sorts of things already!"

Which is a good point. I mean, maybe it's a _bad_ point, in that I'm sharing information with the enemy, but the enemy we're supposed to work with isn't exactly the enemy for that stretch of time. And I'm not giving her confidential information on Theft business; I'm teaching her how to blow up houses. Who doesn't love that? And it's information that's easy to find elsewhere. The very opposite of confidential. "You and me both," I say, since the tutorial on bugging hotel rooms was pretty interesting. "How long do you think our partners are going to take?"

"Vivienne's very thorough. We have time for one drink at least. Maybe two! Besides, we're celebrating, aren't we?" She lifts her glass as I'm picking up my beer, and clinks it to mine. "To exploding things that ought to be exploded."

Two drinks might be a little careless, but there's nothing wrong with one. I tap my glass right back. "To things going exactly as they should." I swig my drink--it's tolerable--and ask her, "Did you hear the timing on how they went off? Too close together to hear it as anything but one big bang. Which is exactly how you want it, since staggered explosions are a whole different ball game."

"All at once," says Maddy, "Everything together. Entirely right." She pauses, some focus I can't follow, and continues, "When you learned how, in Sheol, did they teach you because you liked it, or did you like it because you learned?"

No one's ever asked that question before. I drink my beer and try to work it out in my head. "Neither, I think. Or...maybe more the second one. No one cared what I _already_ liked during that stage in my education, insofar as I'd had any time to develop personal opinions anyway. They taught me how to do it, and I enjoyed it, and maybe I would've enjoyed anything they taught me how to do that offered that level of control over something external. But there's no way to know from a sample size of one, is there?"

"No," Maddy agrees, "you'll have to learn something else to tell for sure. It is a _lot_ of control over the world, explosions. Your way of constructing them, at least! You know all of the little rules. How the chemical compounds work. Where in the house to find the load-bearing walls. And then all you need, once you know them, is to operate them properly."

It's not unlike having a conversation with Regan, somewhere in the middle of a job. The part where she tells me that I need to figure things out, because that's what I do. Except Maddy's not telling me to do anything else--that I might have to worry about--but talking about what we just did, and how well it went.

So simple, and I get to do it so seldom. "Easy to learn, and easy to teach. A ten-year-old could do most of that, if they had someone to buy the supplies and do the heavy lifting." As well I should know. Dangerous territory, let's move away from that line of conversation. "Maybe it really _is_ a natural liking for that particular sort of thing. Most of the other skills I've learned in, uh, other jobs haven't taken nearly so well. Maybe one or two." I have no patience for lockpicking and I'm still semi-competent at picking pockets. But I can do the getaway driving like a pro, and it's a certain type of fun to con someone into giving me the information and access I shouldn't have.

"Or it's about how explosions change the world," Maddy says, "because you understand the rules to change it, and your other skills don't." Her fingertips lie on my wrist, barely enough touch to count. Though it does.

"Everything we do changes the world," I say. "But sometimes it's more--direct. Controlled. Predictable, I guess? Explosions are the sort of thing where if you're not ready to make them predictable, you shouldn't be using them at all, when so many other things we do, people can just stumble around getting it mostly right and course-correcting."

"I like them," she says. "Explosions. Because you have to learn enough to make them predictable first. And you like them. For something so destructive they're terribly systematic. When I set that off you were so pleased, Leo. I like that you like systems." Her fingers are curled over my wrist, one resting lightly right across my pulse, and if I were paying more attention I would have noticed when she slid nearer in this booth. 

"All the interesting destruction is systematic," I say, because I would like to say something clever, and I'm having a little trouble thinking straight through this--distraction. I shouldn't take it for more than it is, but after years and years of _Djinn_ it's so odd and so pleasing to have someone say outright that they like something about me, and mean it. "It's. Um. Easy to take anything apart through sheer power, if you don't care what you have afterward, but you need to understand how things hang together to take them apart efficiently and predictably. Much as I love the big bangs, it's almost as satisfying to take apart something small in exactly the right way." I drag a thumb down the side of the glass they brought me beer in, and shape a single crack along it with my resonance. Not enough for anything to shatter. A single line following the path I've set for it.

Am I showing off? Hell, yes. For once I have an appreciative audience. Maddy follows the crack down the side of the glass with the tip of her index finger. (She hasn't taken her other hand off my wrist.) "That's exactly right," she says. "How everything hangs together, and how to pull it apart when you understand the rules. The whole world's like that. That's what the Game is. The rules of the world, and how to understand them and move inside them and make things happen. Correctly."

The Game would be about rules. And it's--a moment of vertigo, as I try to work out what I was thinking about the Game and the rules of the world. Like I just lost something that was at the tip of my tongue.

Dangerous conversation, but she's only stating the obvious, and there's no particular danger in _agreeing_ with her in that case. Theft is about breaking the rules, and the Game is about living inside them. Ghosts in the machine, like humans manipulating the world around them without ever breaking the laws of physics and corporeal reality the way Songs and resonance do.

"Someone ought to understand it," I say, which is obvious and inane. I'd rather show off a bit of cleverness, but I used up most of that on planning and the explosions. I haven't had anywhere _near_ enough to drink that I should be this tongue-tied, but even if it's been an excellent day, it's been a very strange few days. "Parts of it, anyway. It's that saying--the map isn't the territory? The rules aren't the world itself. But they're a way to figure out where you're going and what you're doing in it."

The Balseraph's fingers lace into mine. "The rules aren't the world but it's a one-to-one correspondence, so they might as well be. Like a map built to exact scale!" She's all straightforward sincerity, and I can almost see it. Rules that are less like health and safety codes and more like chemistry, the underlying principles that produce everything from baking soda volcanoes to plastic explosives. "There's no reason you couldn't understand them, too. Everything would feel as explicable and controllable and vast as blowing up that house."

That is almost impossible, but it can't be _impossible_ or she wouldn't say it. "If it's a one-to-one correspondence, I just don't see how I would ever understand them _all_. It's like trying to hold the entire universe inside your brain at once. How long does that even take?" Or, I almost want to ask, how many Forces do you need to be able to fit all of it in your mind at once?

"That's why we help each other," says Maddy, who has an answer for everything in this conversation. I'm glad one of us does. "And catch each other when we don't understand. And explain when one of us knows something someone else doesn't. Haven't you worked with a team? Your partner. That Balseraph you worked with in the War. Like that."

"My ex in the War wasn't--" Wait, wait, back up, that's not a conversation to have with this person right now. This delightful, perplexing Balseraph (of the Game, let's not forget that part) who's shooing away the waiter so that we can talk in peace. I try this sentence again. "That's how it works best, I think. Complementary skills and knowledge, since none of us can know everything or be good at everything." Can we? Surely we can't. Even Superiors can't, or they'd all be in endless stalemate, instead of engaging in churning politics and a War that shoves back and forth now and then.

"No one can know everything except a Prince, and even then they specialize," Maddy agrees. She's not an angel, to nearly read my mind, so maybe the train of thought is just that obvious. "So we help each other. You helped me explode a house; I helped you wire a room. Neither of us were breaking any rules, and now we both know new ones, so it's less likely that we ever will."

"And so long as we're supposed to work together, we might as well work together _well_. Learn from each other, all that sort of thing." I catch my fingers starting to tap on the table in the rhythm Zhune uses, and lay my hand flat before that can keep going. "Are the skills themselves the rules? Or knowing when to deploy which skills? Or both?"

"Knowing where. Anyone can learn a skill. How to use one and _why_ \--that's what makes a good Player." She lays another hand over mine, flat on the table, and then pulls mine up, my hands between hers. "And a good Thief, I suppose."

"I try." That has to be clear. "I mean--to be a good Thief. Exactly as I ought to be. It's easier when people explain the rules, instead of leaving the discovery of them as an exercise for the reader."

"Of course you try," says Maddy. "And of course it's easier when someone explains." Her gaze is locked on me. And vice versa. "You'd like to know a rule, wouldn't you? A rule for right now. Between us."

"Yes," I say. It's a terrible idea. And what would Zhune say? But she's right, and what my partner doesn't know won't hurt him. That's been my policy for years now.

And sometimes it feels so much better to have things make _sense_ , even if it's only for a little while.

"Right here, and right now," Maddy says, and holds my hands tightly between hers, as if she has no intention of letting go, "Nothing is fair. And everything is explicable."

We've been here before. We have been here before, and I changed the topic because that was road too dangerous to travel down, and who can trust a Balseraph of the Game to be anything but conniving and manipulative? Every word out of her mouth is dangerous to even _hear_ , much less believe.

But I already said yes, and that was almost like a promise.

Besides. It's so much easier, it feels so much better, to let it be true. I've always known that nothing was fair. Nothing has ever been fair, from the day I was made and I wasn't what anyone wanted. And twenty years later, I finally found out _why_.

Everything makes sense, if you have the right information. The fault isn't in the world, unfair as it is. The fault is in my lack of access to the knowledge.

"Okay," I say. Not clever at all. "How do I get things explained?"

Maddy nods encouragingly, until I'm nodding right back at her. "You can ask," she says. "What do you want to know?"

Too many things I shouldn't talk about. What happened to all the people I left or sent away, how long I'll live, if my partner will ever stop pushing and let us get our work done properly. Everything I can know. Nothing that will hurt to have confirmed. "I don't even know where to start," I say, which is as true as everything she's telling me. "Do you really--" No, no, I am _not_ going to ask about the job, I don't want to know. The job's an abstract concept that can snap back into reality when our partners return. "How do you keep people in place? Not physically, but--make them stay who they are and where they ought to be."

It's a terrible question, and there are at least two professors from college who would have given me such looks for asking it like that.

All the same, she considers this quite seriously. "You take away all the options that aren't the right option," she says, "and then it's very obvious what the right option is, from their point of view."

"So how do I take away the options?" And why am I even asking that question? Maybe that's the answer right there. I lose people because I'm not willing to lock them down to one possible solution that happens to me. Or sometimes because I'm not able, but, oh, I could've kept Nik if I wanted to. Just not exactly as I wanted her. "Never mind. I'm pretty sure the answer involves having more power, and that's all...abstract and long-term and not very useful in the immediate future."

"The power doesn't have to be yours," she says, "I don't get things done all by myself! There's a whole Word. A whole way of seeing. You can use that to hold someone just where you want them, when that's where they're supposed to be anyway." She stops, for one of those perfect serene Balseraphic smiles. Nothing like Regan's, and yet perfectly recognizable as such. "Like this." And she kisses me.

The abstract and long-term can go hang, because I'm much more interested in kissing her back.

I've made better decisions. I've made worse. I don't _care_ , and I barely even care that I'm in entirely the wrong vessel, and probably the wrong location, and the timing isn't great, and, look, if she's going to make the first move, why in the world should I say no? She understands how these things work. If she thinks this is a good idea, I'm not going to disagree.

We seem to be in continuing agreement on this point, because she puts a hand to the back of my head and presses her point. (Oh, now I'm reminded of Regan again, but not in a bad way. Most memories of Regan are pretty good when they involve kissing.) We're thigh-to-thigh in this booth (probably no one's looking this way anyway, and who cares what mortals think anyway?), while the Balseraph does most of the kissing and I try to keep up. Or at least express that I am interested in keeping up this part of the conversation, yes, as long as we've decided to follow this particular topic down this specific detour.

My metaphors are getting mixed. Don't care.

Her other hand slides down my spine and settles right on my waistband, and it might be time for working under clothes if not for us being in public, strictly speaking. Maddy's kiss ends with my lower lip sucked into her mouth and a bite that's sharp enough to be _interesting_.

She lets go of my mouth and says, "You like this, don't you? Me telling you the rules."

"I don't make a habit of it," I say, which is maybe avoiding the question. I still have one hand on the table, like there's plausible deniability if someone passes by, and the other pressed against the back of the booth. Because if she is anything like Regan--and I should not extrapolate over much, here, but I can't help that--there's no touching without permission, no matter what she starts.

"Just on particular occasions, mm?" Her next kiss is deep and slow and entirely unfair, giving me trouble thinking straight right when she's asked a question and then kept me from answering. When she breaks away this time, she takes my hand from the back of the booth, sets it on her waist. As explicit permission as I'm ever going to get. "You can tell me."

"It's nice," oh god this is not a good thing for me to be talking about, "to let someone else set the rules once in a while," and I should not be using her terminology for this, I am making such a bad decision here, "if the person in question knows how to make them sufficiently plausible." I would rather like to start another kiss, and I'm afraid that if I keep us out of conversation for too long everything is going to turn--uncertain again.

But everything makes sense, right this minute. Even if I don't know the answers, I know they _exist_. Someone has them. Maybe she does.

The Balseraph with all the answers has this _shift_ in her expression, all around the eyes. Pupils dilated, like I came up with exactly the right answer to give her a reason to keep focusing on this here and now. "This is exactly what we're supposed to be doing right now," she says, and "we're exactly on-task and inside parameters and meeting _so many victory conditions_ , Leo, you have no idea."

"If this is how we meet victory conditions," I say, "I want more jobs like this one." Not something I would've imagined myself saying yesterday, but here we are and, okay, this is too public a place to climb right up into her lap, and maybe a bit forward, but I'm willing to try starting the next kiss myself, just to see if it'll take.

The kiss takes. This Balseraph doesn't seem to have any problem at all with what I'm offering, and while that's going on her ankle hooks around mine, a leg goes over my thigh--this is like sitting next to Yuliang, that's not bad at all--and she's doing a lot more than _not objecting_. Even better than conversation.

Until she breaks away again and says, terribly amused and almost in a stage whisper, "We are making out in _a bar in South Dakota_. In front of _humans_."

"That's fine," I say. "Think of how unlikely it is for anyone to blame this on either of us, given the demonstrated behavioral patterns so far." My mouth is running faster than my brain. "Maybe they'll blame Lust, and who cares about them? Did you want to move to the car? We'd have to leave the drinks." My beer is unfinished and I care even less about that than anything else mentioned so far.

"The car is _way_ too far away," says Maddy, and grabs my hand as she wriggles out of the booth. I'm pulled along, and it's not like I'm resisting. (Anything. Okay, something to think about later when I'm not busy.) "We can come back for the drinks. If you still want a drink afterwards. Or a cigarette."

Picturing Maddy with a cigarette in hand is just about enough to make my entire brain short-circuit. It's a good thing she's the one with a plan. The plan appears to involve entering the women's bathroom at the back of the bar. So, that's one plus to wearing this vessel, right there.

I was hoping for a single locking room, but it's a tiny two-stall bathroom. Fortunately empty, aside from the two of us.

There was something I meant to ask about location choice, which entirely falls out of my mind when Maddy spins me around to pin me back against a wall. Exactly as the door shuts. Answered, regardless. Her hip and thigh presses between my legs; I'm still standing under my own power (and the help of this excellent sturdy wall that's unlikely to collapse unless I ask it to do so), but riding along her hip and. Well.

"Much better," Maddy says, and gets back to the kissing.

If I think about Zhune I'm going to start not liking how trapped I am here, so I remember Regan and her hand at my throat when she shoved me up against the wall in that crumbling house, and, yeah, I'm good here. Balseraph privilege, and I haven't even picked up any new bruises from this one yet. I pull my hands away from the wall--I don't need any more bracing there--and try resting them on Maddy's shoulders, as a general hint that I'm for this.

As is she. If the kissing weren't so good I'd try to start a conversation, but it is so I don't, not until she moves away to do terrible, delightful things along my jawline. That's going to leave a mark, several exciting types of marks, and oh I don't _care_ , and anyone who does, well, that's their problem. My determination to restart a conversation and find out what she thinks kind of dissolves on the shores of that bite and that kiss and the pull of skin just above my pulse. Look. It's distracting, okay? Almost so much as what her leg is doing between mine, and this Balseraph has a flexibility that nearly matches her true form despite the vessels between us.

She pulls away from me (bad), and says (oh, good), her hands on my shoulders, "We're wearing too many clothes, sweetheart." Entirely true. "Take something off. Whichever you think is most appropriate."

I would like to ask for a little clarity--hers or mine?--but asking questions in the middle of instructions is almost never a good plan. Besides, there's a difference between what I want and what's likely to be most appropriate. It's a little work to push off the wall enough to tug my jacket off--I end up resting on her leg more firmly than is _strictly_ necessary--and then strip off my shirt, to drop that to the floor on top of it. "Better?"

Her gaze drops briefly to my chest, so I think that's a yes? Not the vessel I'd choose for this, but you drive the car you've got, not the one you'd like to have stolen. "Oh, _much_ ," she says. A hand to each of my wrists, and she has my arms pinned against the wall. And instead of more conversation, she drops her head down to, ah, pay attention to my chest. I _can't_ object, not when it's the same as what she was doing to my jaw and neck, and who's even going to see the marks she's leaving behind? (For a day or two. For a few hours, in any case. Several hours. It'll be fine.) I still haven't come up with a conversational topic, though I've made a few sounds that make me glad no one else has entered the bathroom since we took the place over.

If anyone shows up, she can take care of it. Maddy's good at making things work properly. Correctly.

She stands back up, still taller than me--who isn't?--and lets go of my arms. Which is enough to make me wonder if I did something wrong, or didn't do something right, until she says, "Now take off _my_ clothes, Leo."

I have exactly enough presence of mind left to ask, "Here?" while I pull her jacket off. (Far more professional than mine, though I like mine better. I like all of them best in the growing pile on the bathroom floor.) I pull off her blouse next, wishing vaguely that buttons had been involved--maybe better that they weren't, there's less to break that way--and find she has a gun at the small of her back. An artifact set of cuffs that I'm almost entirely sure are will shackles hooked to her belt loops.

This should not make me think even more of Regan, who would have had gun and knife instead, but that's what happens and here we are. And this particular Balseraph goes for much fancier lingerie, all black lace and satin, where my ex-girlfriend believed in utilitarian underwear.

"I said here, didn't I?" By the time she says it, I've almost forgotten my question. And I get a bat to the hand when I stray a little too close to those shackles, in getting her slacks unfastened and pulled down.

Questions are informative in their own way, and yes, she said here, I know that, but I don't _know_ that the way other things are known and true right now. I drop to my knees to pull her slacks down properly, and Maddy slides her hands into my hair, letting me fall. Like I've made the right decision, but she won't _tell_ me. I keep my hands safely away from any weaponry, fingers spread over her hips. "Should we be doing this?" Of course we should. But it'd be nice to be sure.

She hooks a thumb under my chin and tilts my head back. That expression says that she knows exactly why I'm asking. Maddy pulls me closer, and says, "This is precisely what we should be doing. You on your knees and asking to be told the rules. That's what you want, isn't it? To understand what you should do."

"Everything is explicable," I say. (I can't remember why that seemed wrong, once upon a time. It's obvious.) "All I need is the explanation." I could make an excellent guess, but I want to _know_.

She tilts her hips forward and up; the lace in front of me is already wet. "Put your mouth on me, Leo. Suck me off right through the lace and I'll explain everything, I'll tell you exactly how and why and how right you look while you do it."

Maddy's promised me. So it's true, and I will, and I am, and this is exactly what we should be doing and where I want to be.


	17. Each Heart Taken In a Trick Scores One Point Against the Player Winning the Trick

The rendezvous which we all agreed on, back when we were making these plans in the hotel, is the bar beside the laundromat. It is innocuous enough, and has convenient shared access to the laundromat's basement. Leo, whose designation as a 'Tether expert' apparently includes analysis of blueprints filed with the city's department of urban planning, had implied that this was its primary selling point, and when Zhune and I walk in, I am inclined to agree: this is just enough better than a dive to be boring, and not better enough to be worthy of regular patronage. It is dim, beginning to be crowded, and the television is playing some hockey game on mute while the sound system runs through the majority of this month's top-40 hits on incessant loop.

Our partners are also not immediately in evidence.

There is no reason for them to not be here already. The explosion they set off was at least four hours ago, and both of them can operate a vehicle without incident. Or at least I have been assuming that both of them can operate a vehicle without incident; I know Madeline can.

I shouldn't be this -- I'm not _worried_. I'm off-balance. We have completed our side of the mission objectives without a problem and I'm still off-balance and hesitating like a seven-Force demon on her first assignment, unable to cope with the smallest deviation from plan. I was entirely pleased with how that interrogation went just a moment ago. Now the dull interior of a middling bar in a middling city is as cloying and close as an alleyway in Hades and I have forgotten something or misunderstood something or thought of something unpleasant and unthought of it again, leaving only the oilslick residue of knowing that I _had_ known something was wrong.

Zhune is waiting next to me, and half of what's wrong here is that he's not worried, and that I expect him to be. That I am expecting anything of him at all. That he was as good at the interrogation as he was, and that running it hadn't even made him blink. I'm _missing something._

I say, "Where do you think our partners have run off to?" and keep everything but casual interest out of my voice.

He scans the bar. "Perhaps they got bored and went downstairs. Or they found a dark corner to scheme in." 

I do not think he's joking; I wouldn't be, about my partner, and his seems just as obstreperous and sneaky. "Madeline would not go on to the next stage in the operation without checking in," I tell him, and if his Calabite is the type to run the plan silent and blind and alone, this would be the time for him to _inform me_. (The time to inform me should have been about twelve hours ago. But instead we have been talking theory, and the shifting frames for what we've been doing: surveillance or manipulation, forced draws -- stick in my skull like the raw place a knocked-out tooth leaves.)

"They're unlikely to have broken through any walls yet," Zhune says, but he does pause and unfocus slightly, that inward-seeking look that Djinn get when they're locating an attuned. Like all of the universe is internal and located around a single bright point. Then, satisfied, he nods towards the back of the bar, where there's a sign for the restrooms.

I can think of several reasons Madeline might have gone into the restroom with Leo, beginning with something as innocuous as fixing her makeup and proceeding through something as inconvenient as having gotten bored and then drunk enough that a tiled surface was _safer_ , and from there onto more fanciful notions: they are hiding from the other Soldier or the gremlin-in-the-dog; they are attempting to ditch a trailing angel or demon from another Word; Madeline has decided that the Calabite is a traitor to Hell and is interrogating her somewhere they are unlikely to be interrupted.

"Well," I say. "I'll go fetch them, then." At least one of us is wearing a vessel of the right gender to do so. Zhune waves me on with a minute gesture of one hand and saunters toward a corner booth to wait for us.

The bathroom is not locked, so I walk right in without knocking.

Madeline locks eyes with me the instant I come through the door. She's flushed a hectic rose across her cheeks and down the pale skin of her chest and shoulders, bare save for the scraps of black lace that make up her bra and the equally-black harness of the holster of her gun, and she has Leo on her knees for her, one thigh looped over the Calabite's equally-stripped shoulders and a hand splayed against the back of her head, holding her in place. The long muscles in her thighs and belly tremble, tense.

"Madchen," I say. "You're supposed to ask first."

By the way Madeline swallows and takes a much steadier breath than the one before it I can tell that Leo has frozen between her thighs, and she's not going to get any closer to where she was so near to getting unless something shifts. Her fingers tighten in Leo's hair -- so possessive, my partner, when she's getting something she wants. She really should have asked me. I don't mind. Madeline hardly ever has poor taste. But on the floor of a bathroom during an assignment is sufficient risk that she should have asked me to mitigate it. To manage it for her.

"I know," she says, and oh, she's _wrecked_ , raw-voiced and smug, "but she asked me to explain how the Rules worked, Vee. So I did."

Leo is blushing, enough for me to see the flush spread down her back.

"And does she understand now?" I ask.

"I always convince people who genuinely want to know," Madeline says. "You know me."

I wonder how dizzy the Calabite on the floor is, with my Balseraph making the world make perfect sense for her. I wonder how long it'll last. I cannot _wait_ to see what her partner will do, when he finds out.

"Leo," I say. "Finish what you were doing."

She _doesn't_ , which is a fascinating point of reference in and of itself. The tension in her spine goes from _shame_ to _anger_ and she pulls her face away from Madeline like she's hit some sort of boundary over which she refuses to climb. Have sex with a Balseraph of the Game in a public restroom, yes; make that Balseraph come when ordered by a Habbalite, no. In an entirely academic fashion, I am intrigued: it is a unique set of rules.

Madeline gets around them for her. It's what my partner is best at, after all.

She strokes her fingertips down the nape of Leo's neck and says, "Hush. Everything's fine. Nothing's wrong. Everything is going according to plan. Come on, sweetheart, I want you _so_ much --"

I know what being on Leo's side of that much convincing feels like. It is like falling over the edge of a cliff. It is sweet, and easy, and endless, and perfect. My partner's an artist.

Leo presses her mouth back in and it does not take long _at all_. Madeline watches me the whole time. Keeps her eyes open even when her hips snap up and her head goes back against the bathroom wall in an arching shudder.

I exhale when Madeline does.

She's considerate enough, unwinding her legs from Leo and even offering her her hands to pull her up off the floor. Leo snatches up her shirt -- no bra, but she hardly needs one in that vessel -- and goes to the single sink to scrub her face clean. With the flashbulb clarity I can sometimes find in interrogations, I take a fast step forward and catch her by the shoulder, spin her (the vessel is tiny, and I have more Corporeal Forces, by the way she turns under my hand), pin her by the hair, and kiss her before she can wash my partner off her mouth.

Salt-sharp and sweet. She does _not_ kiss back. 

I let her go. She looks frankly _appalled_. "Go wash," I tell her. "Unless you want your partner to know how well you did."

Madeline, dressed and with her hair shaken back into impeccable dishevelment, is looking at me with her cheeks gone scarlet. _"Vee,"_ she says, scandalized by such a simple thing as my wondering whether the Calabite she'd seduced had been worth seducing. I likely oughtn't be playing personal, inter-partnership games during a mission with so many moving parts, but if my Balseraph began it, it'd be unkind not to play along.

I hold out a hand to her, and she folds into my side, warm and still breathing a little too fast. Then I send her to shepherd Leo out of the bathroom, her arm looped around her shoulders, proprietary.

I direct the two of them over to the booth Zhune has occupied for us. "Found them," I say -- rhetorical statement, with how he's been watching ever since the door opened and let us back into the bar, and probably for at least two minutes before. His eyes flick from me to Madeline to Madeline's hand splayed over Leo's collarbone to Leo's kiss-swollen lips and wide, glassy eyes. His face is Djinn-impassive, Theft-blithe, and I can see the lines of tension down his shoulders and through his fingers, tapping on the table. Not happy. Not -- quite -- homicidally angry, but I bet he wishes he could be.

Ah, Madeline. The trouble you get me in.

Madeline says, "Sit down, Leo," which, from the way Zhune's jaw tenses, is adding insult to injury, and I am really going to have to talk to her about risk assessment again. Once this job is over.

Leo sits, Madeline beside him. I take the one remaining chair, between my partner and Zhune. If he does decide that corporeal combat is the better part of valor, I am somewhat less likely to end up in Trauma.

"What kind of fucked is your head?" Zhune asks Leo. 

He is _extremely_ displeased. This is the first time I've seen him be blunt. Or else his partner is more of a weakness for him than I'd thought -- or he's focused enough on the job that he's willing to sacrifice elegance for speed in getting the information he wants.

Leo says, cheerful as anything, "I'm _fine_ ," which I am sure she thinks she is. Madeline's certainly told her so enough.

Zhune turns, a reflective and poised motion, to look at us. Waits.

It is only polite to tell him. Polite, and work-relevant. "Resonance," I say. "Hers. Two minutes and she'll be back to standard."

"An afternoon isn't enough to make it last," Madeline says, and she shouldn't challenge a Djinn on the disposition of his attuned, but since when has my Balseraph ever scrimped on trying to enlighten some poor demon on the true nature and extent of the Word she serves?

(The Word we both serve. How could I ever forget?)

He looks back to his partner, and I could swear that somewhere under the calmly amused facade he's gone focused and vicious (I think of kissing Leo so Madeline could see that I knew exactly how much she'd enjoyed herself), and asks, "What next?"

It is Leo's set-up, after all.


	18. In Which We Are All Very Professional

The problem with Balseraph resonance is that it wears off.

I'm sure many Balseraphs would agree with me on this point. If a good lie (though they'd never put it that way) lasted forever, well, wouldn't _everyone_ be happier? We'd certainly all be in agreement. Except for when Balseraphs disagree, and presumably they'd go take care of that problem themselves.

Or, judging by past experience, use us as cannon fodder in their war over who has the ultimate Truth. So maybe the part where the resonance doesn't last forever is for the best. Even if it has a crash worse than a hangover. Worse than coming off the Habbalite resonance. Fucking with a person's emotions is horrible, but it's also transparent to a knowing target. You can look at regret or rage or glee, and say to yourself, _ah, this isn't really me._ Doesn't make it any easier to resist feeling it. Doesn't stop you from reacting to the feelings. But you still know they're lies.

The best and worst thing about the Balseraph resonance is how deep in your head it gets. They call Seraphim the _Most_ Holy, and there really ought to be a better reverse of that for Balseraphs. No one sees deeper into what you mean than Seraphim do, and no gets what they mean further into your head than Balseraphs do.

You can't even explain Balseraph resonance to someone who hasn't tried it. Habbalite resonance is "you feel this way" and everyone has feelings. (Elohim possibly aside.) Impudite resonance is "you have a great friend" and I think most people want one of those, even if they've never had one. You can imagine. There's a narrative for it. Balseraph resonance isn't just agreeing with what they say; it's this perfect confidence. Trust. I don't even know what to call it. _Surety_ that goes deeper than any self-knowledge or personal opinion, that what they've told you is true. That it's Truth. When a Seraph says something, you know it's true, the way you know Mars is a planet and Haagenti does a lot of snacking. When a Balseraph says something, you know it's true, the way you know where your hands are, that gravity is pointing down, how sunlight feels on the back of your neck.

Then it wears off. And it's all phantom limbs, spinning under a wave, and wondering if you've ever stood in sunlight at all, or if it was only a Media soundstage with some great heat lamps.

Zhune asked me about the plan, and I reviewed the details, specified likely danger points, made sure everyone was on the same page, it was _great_ , and we were at the stairs to the basement before Maddy's resonance wore off.

It's not a sharp line, really. Between confidence and its lack. Truth and lies. It's a very fuzzy line. But it doesn't take long to cross it.

About as much time as it takes to lift my foot off one stair, and completely miss the next one.

My Djinn snags me, an arm around my chest before I can pitch into a Gamester's back. Straightens me out, and walks me down the stairs the rest of the way with one hand on my shoulder.

I can walk in a straight line. So I'm fine.

He can't kill me, he's _attuned_.

I mean, not unless I ask him to, which is, as I understand it, a weird sort of get-out-of-jail-free card in the Djinn dissonance conditions, and right now it sounds like that might be a better idea than letting him deal with this at his leisure. But the bastard wouldn't do that if I asked, anyway. That would be far too easy.

When the Gamesters hit the bottom of the stairs, Maddy turns around and smiles at me.

I smile back, all teeth, so that I cannot say anything unwise.

Since no one else is volunteering information, I say, "I'll take point. Unless anyone else is dying to pick locks this afternoon?" Anything to have an excuse not to look at any of these people.

If only I'd thought to load _this_ building with explosives. I could solve so many of my problems at once, if only briefly.

"You're the one with the specialized skillset," says the Habbalite. "Go right ahead." If she has any reaction to what happened above, beyond what she expressed in that bathroom, it's not apparent in how she says that now. Maybe she _doesn't_ consider it anything worth worrying about past the five-minute annoyance of a divergence in the plan. It's not as if it matters. We're not even off schedule; we allowed _hours_ more for killing time in this bar, if she and Zhune needed it for their work.

We're on schedule and everything in the job is going right. How lovely for us.

The basement's mostly a mess of storage for more than the bar above; half of the junk down here is the remnants of someone's botched renovation project. (I can tell from their drywall choice alone that they were working with incompetent contractors. Or, worse, trying to do it themselves, and on the cheap. Never do your renovations on the cheap. That's what you do when you _want_ a building to crumble slowly around the inhabitants, driving them to drink and despair, and then catch on fire.) I lead our merry band around that mess to a locked door, which I pop open with entirely prosaic lock-picking skills.

Not that anyone appreciates that kind of thing in this group.

"When these properties were built," I say, as the silence is getting oppressive and we're not in a place that needs a lot of stealth yet, "there _was_ a connecting door. Probably sealed off when they were sold off to separate buyers, which was, near as I can tell, shortly after the Tether formed. It's an obvious security hole, so I'd expect them to patch it, and--there." The doorway isn't just locked off, it's been bricked over, and then painted over roughly. Just a door-shaped rough patch, further obscured by water stains and peeling paint, in a basement wall. "Now, the exciting question is whether or not they've rigged it as well as blocked it off."

"How would we tell?" asks Maddy, who has all the good questions tonight.

"Well, if it explodes and we all die, they've probably rigged something up," I say, "so you may want to take a few steps back."

"So kind of you to put yourself in harm's way for us," Vivienne says. She moves two steps back, and takes her partner with her, which is not exactly the same as both of them moving back. And Zhune's moving back beside them, which is...well, it's not a lack of confidence in me, I think, because if he were actually worried about me fucking this up, he'd be moving a _lot_ further away. We're old hands by now at pulling each other out of the wreckage. Never stand in the blast radius together; it's a solid principle for a partnership.

I move two meters to the left of the bricked-in doorway, and start making us a new door.

It's fiddly work. Blasting through the wall outright would be trivial, noisy, and liable to hit any triggers set on the bricked-up door. And there's the small possibility of them having gone to enough trouble to run wires through the wall proper. So I'm peeling this wall apart by the layers. Half a centimeter at a time, in long sweeping strips that nudge in a little further, and let me watch for any signs of alterations.

Not just fiddly, it's tedious, and makes me wish for a dust mask, or at least a good broom. But there's a certain pleasure in taking this old wall apart, one material after another, in perfect silence. (Near perfect silence. The Gamesters are talking, but so quietly it's easy to ignore.) The universe is uncertain and the future isn't looking great, but I can still take things apart with my mind. It's the best thing about being a Calabite.

It's the only good thing about being a Calabite, but I'll take what I can get.

The final layer on the far side (mostly layers of paint) crumbles, and I step through. Carefully. If there's anything Dark Humor loves, it's exciting traps that murder you.

The bricked-up door we bypassed has several canisters attached on this side. I bet it would ruin our day if one of those broke up. Otherwise, the basement here is a much tidier version of the one under the bar. There's the furnace, and--oh, they did _not_ file plans for that.

"Huh," I say. "Secret elevator. That might explain the electricity discrepancy."

"Why is a secret elevator funny?" asks Maddy, as she steps through the newly created doorway.

"Nothing Comedians do is actually funny," says her Habbalite, and I would agree with that wholeheartedly if not for the source of the statement.

Zhune follows them in without saying anything at all. Damn it all, he's not just angry at me, he's _plotting_ , and--yes, I mean, I do suddenly change plans on him all the time, and he usually plays along well, but it's okay when I do it. I know what I'm doing when it comes to improvising on the job. He's coming up with a plan, and if he decides to implement it without telling me, I'll be hard-pressed to back him up properly. We can't afford to fuck with the Gamesters just because--

I mean.

Well, never _mind_ my partner's hobbies or anything else, and we're still on schedule, so all's well. "Stairs were the plan," I say, "and here's a bonus elevator. Any votes?" I don't think it's necessary to actually list out the positives and negatives of each approach. They should be pretty obvious to everyone here.

"Elevator," Maddy says, with such confidence I want to agree with her from sheer reflex.

"Elevator's rigged, Madchen." Because someone in this group doesn't believe in fun. (At least two people here don't believe in fun if they're not the ones in charge of it.)

"Probably," Maddy says. "We should find out how, and unrig it, so it won't go off on us on the way out." 

Vivienne looks at Zhune, who has not offered an opinion yet, or even so much as a facial expression suggesting a preference in either direction. "Can you unrig a rigged elevator?"

"Depends on the rig," Zhune says, and now he looks at me. He doesn't even have to be pointed about it; he's just waiting for me to do my job. Because of course we're all being very professional here, and would in no way let any minor interpersonal tension get in the way of the work and our focus.

I shove my hands in my pockets and go to check the elevator.

"Look," I say, "it _could_ be full of bees, or badgers, or any of the other exciting things Jokers put behind doors, but I'm not seeing any obvious signs of it being other than an elevator. And there's always the possibility it'll explode if we press a button. How about we just take the stairs?"

There's also the possibility that the stairs will explode if we put any weight on the even-numbered steps, but at a certain point you have to figure that even Comedians don't want to haul a lot of corpses of customers who got lost checking for extra free dryers out of their Tether's basement in the middle of the night.

Through this fine example of demonic negotiation and democracy, we take the stairs up to the comedy club.

At the club's entrance, we stop outside and I sing myself into near invisibility. Certainly enough invisibility that none of the Hellsworn or smaller demons could catch sight of me; there's a greater chance that a demon who was an angel once would have the eyes for it.

As does the Habbalite, who gives me a brief nod. So. Something to remember, about who's good at finding me when I'd rather not be found.

I flash her a shadowy smile, and head into the club.

The place stinks. Not a horrible odor to drive people away, but that faint miasma of human sweat and spilled alcohol and cheap, greasy food, that you just can't clean out of a place after a while. Just walking into the place is depressing. The comedians they put on stage would have to be hilarious to make up for this, and I'm sure they don't. Tethers to Hell are seldom the kind of place that make people happy. Even Tethers to Lust are usually Tethers because they make _some_ people happy at the expense of others.

On which cheery note I head across the stage and into the back, searching for our Comedian.

He is not the man I find sitting amid a pile of stacked chairs, a sullen creature hunched over his phone. I lean over this one's shoulder, and find he's sending obscene text messages to a variety of phone numbers. Probably the Djinn; he matches that description better. An outside chance of being a Hellsworn. None of those matter much, compared to our target.

The club isn't particularly large. It takes me less than a minute to track down an office with an open door, where an Impudite is throwing darts at the wall. There's a dartboard hanging on the wall to his right; he's formed about two thirds of a smiley face with repeated holes to the wall.

I get the feeling he's not good friends with the Seneschal, whose office this probably is.

There is a small and unreasonable part of me that wants to tell him the left side of that smile is crooked, and that if he's all that gung-ho about being part of Dark Humor he should head back to Hell, no matter what he's been told, and find an excuse to stay there for some time. Maybe forever. That if he wants to run away from Judgment, no one could blame him for it, but some unpleasant people are likely to hold it against him, and maybe he should take that into account?

I'm sure he's older than me. He had a Word to report to, and he left. Didn't get kicked out. Left. It's the sort of choice no one wants to let anyone make. Choices are for Superiors, and the rest of us get to muddle along making tiny, inconsequential decisions within the constraints of what they tell us to do.

My Prince told me to help the Game haul this man away in chains. This Impudite has, I think, made one grand and significant choice in all his life, and handing him to the Game will all but invert it. (They can't make him _not an Impudite_ , short of making him dead, which I don't think he will find very comforting. At least at first.)

It's none of my business. I don't like Judgment or Dark Humor or the Game, and they all rather deserve each other, and for all I know he's a deep cover Game agent we're providing a very complicated cover story to for his planned exit.

Or at least, I could tell myself that if I wanted to feel better about any of this. But how I feel about this doesn't matter.

I take a route back to the others that doesn't pass by the Djinn, noting the position of the elevator's exit on the way. Simple enough to bypass the demon we're not kidnapping and hustle this man right down the stairs. If the Gamesters know how to do this _quietly_ , it's perfectly straightforward.

Once the Habbalite's caught sight of me again, and made a little gesture my way that has the others' attention on me, I say, "Behind the stage on the left, past the elevator, in the office. The door's open. Djinn's off to the right. I didn't see anyone else."

"Easy enough," says Vivienne. "We'll take point."

Zhune has his own little gesture for that. _After you_ is what that one means, and I'm not sure I'd walk forward with the two of us right behind if I were in her position right now.

Not that we're going to do anything untoward. We all have the same goal here, and the time to descend into petty squabbling is _after_ the Impudite's wrapped in will shackles and stuffed in the trunk.

The Gamesters take the lead, as promised. That leaves me trailing along at the back. (With the Habbalite not looking, I could back off and not even have to watch this part, but that would be unprofessional. Stick close to the team unless there's a reason to do otherwise.) There is no grand difficulty in this part of the plan; all we have to do is walk reasonably quietly through a theater with mediocre lighting, to an office with an open door. This kind of thing I could've done before I ever joined Theft, when I was figuring out the whole process of larceny as I went along.

In the office, the Impudite has his back to the door. Pulling darts out of the wall, as his smiley face continues to grow.

Now, if _I_ were in charge of this part of the grab, I'd have tracked down some damn tranquilizer darts, or maybe just a good old-fashioned blackjack, and would ask Zhune to smack the Impudite over the back of the head not _quite_ hard enough to kill him. Brain damage doesn't come up as nearly as much of a problem when dealing with celestials as it does with mortals, especially with the Song of Healing at hand.

Our friendly local Habbalite of the Game walks right into the office with Maddy at her side, and says, "Hello, Daniel. It's time for you to come with us, now."

Yeah, sure. That's an option too.

The Impudite spins around, and his eyes go wide. You can just _see_ him counting up the three visible people standing in the doorway, one of them clearly of some serpentine persuasion, and the other two...not. That is so perfect I wish I'd thought to set it up deliberately.

"It is about three days too late for this shit," he says, with the brittle driving confidence-of-voice that says he's anything but. "It's _done_ , I _quit_ , fuck _off_ or shoot me or whatever."

"It's never too late to come home, Daniel." Maddy's confidence is genuine and pure, in a way only Balseraphs and Seraphim and the truly mad can achieve.

"We're here to take you where you're supposed to be," says the Habbalite. She is perfectly calm. Of course she is. This is the bread and butter of Game work, all the fuss and fun of setup aside: finding people who are afraid of you, and taking them away to hurt them.

"Did you not hear me?" The Impudite has decided this is not quite the point to run screaming--after all, the door is blocked--but he's on edge, as well he should be. "I quit. I quit so hard I _can't_ go home."

"Not that home," says Maddy. She's enjoying this, isn't she? That serenity does not come from performing tedious routine tasks.

"The home you should have come to when you quit." They both are. The Habbalite is sure she has this in hand--she has so much backup, there's four of us and one of him, we've peeled the Seneschal away, I certainly _hope_ this Impudite knows better than to try calling for his Prince--and I do not feel well.

How I feel about this is not relevant to getting the job done.

"Just come over here and we'll take care of the rest," Maddy says. I have heard that voice from her before, quite recently. She's making a gentle argument for why he should see things her way. "This part's easy."

Every line in his body says _no_ , a full-body bracing against what Maddy is trying to do to his head. " _Fuck no_ ," he says.

You poor bastard. What do you expect your options are, here?

Zhune directs a glance at the two Gamesters that tells me he'd rather cut the chit-chat and get to the theft-of-person portion of this assignment, before the Djinn across the theater hears voices and decides to investigate. Or before the Impudite settles on some hilarious, inconvenient plan of action, which will not save him but may seriously annoy the rest of us.

We are working with competent people. At the moment, under these exact circumstances, that's a good thing. Vivienne catches the look, and says, "We did give you a chance to come in under your own power. You should remember that." She nods to Zhune--who moves forward as if this is a pre-arranged signal, which it might well be, with all the time they spent together--and makes a tiny gesture to her partner, who reaches for the concealed will shackles.

The Impudite flings his handful of darts towards her. Us. My _partner_ , and one of those darts is cascading dust instead of a dart in Zhune's face because that is what I do, and one slices a red line across the Habbalite's cheek.

A fraction of a second later, the Impudite's on the ground, expertly tackled by one Djinn who is, of course, fussed by none of this. Zhune wrestles the poor bastard's wrists out front and together to where Maddy slaps on the will shackles. They work like a practiced team. It's no surprise. Zhune can work perfectly with anyone he cares to.

The Habbalite has not moved, not even to press a hand to the bloody line on her face. She has also shaded a color not appropriate to standard operating function in a vessel without Discord: a sort of gray-green, as if she's prone to seasickness and the whole world just lurched beneath her.

Either she bounced her resonance on something horrible, which would serve her right, or she ate dissonance to avoid that, and picked up exciting new Discord. The former seems more likely; you don't see a lot of Gamesters walking around with stacks of dissonance.

So long as she can still walk in a quiet, straight line, I don't much care. Zhune and Maddy have the Impudite pinned and will-bound, and my partner has a hand across the man's mouth as well, to prevent any further inconvenient noises. (That particular gesture can turn easily into cutting off all air for a slow trip to unconsciousness, if necessary. I'm familiar with it.) All we have to do is stroll right back the way we came--

"Daniel?" calls the Djinn Joker, across the theater, in that particular timbre of making it clear that he doesn't _care_ , he's not even very _interested_ , he just happened to decide to ask what was going on because he felt like it.

None of us have a good answer for that.

None of us would have any trouble disposing of a small, unprepared Djinn, either, but when demons start showing up next to their Hearts, there's an unpleasantly high chance of someone back at their headquarters noticing and deciding to investigate. Even aside from the dangers of being seen--and later described--when we're all trying to get out of here _clean_.

There is an odd silence, as if someone is expecting someone _else_ to come up with a response, and then Maddy says, voice low, "Let's go! Before he comes looking--you did detach him, didn't you, Vee?" She gets no immediate response. "Vee?"

The Habbalite looks back at Maddy, and says, in what is _not_ a smug voice in the slightest, "I--I don't know, I don't know at all--" She claps a hand over her own mouth. Blood on her hands, at this rate, and we're going to leave an evidence trail a mile wide if someone doesn't snap this all back together soon.

Which I should be doing. I know what to do. I just. Look, I've done my part of all this, and this part isn't my area of expertise, and I should leave this aspect to the Gamesters, who are the ones who want this man so badly anyway.

Our Balseraph has frozen. So she knows there's a serious problem--even the Impudite does at this point, but he's not getting an inch of movement in Zhune's grip--and, there, _she_ can come up with a way to fix it. "Vivienne," she says, calm and tight with her eyes directly on her partner's, "what did you try to hit him with."

"Doubt," Vivienne says. Like she's answering a set question with a memorized answer.

No, that one's no fun at all. Especially when people then tell you to act and answer their questions and you know just how important it is to come up with the right answer, while you can't trust any answer that shows up in your mind at all, or even your knowledge that it's important, and oh it serves her right.

Maddy breaks into Helltongue for her cursing, and at a better time I'd make a mental note of some good turns of phrase. She leaves the pinned Impudite to Zhune, and lays her hands on the Habbalite's shoulders. Contact makes the lying work better. "Everything's fine--"

" _No it isn't_ ," Vivienne says, like she's about to crack, and the very last thing we need right now is a Habbalite tangled up in enough panicky doubt to start doing--unwise things. Like resonating anyone else.

"Daniel?" calls the Djinn Joker again, his voice a little nearer, more annoyed. He thinks he's being played--well, he is--or taunted. Someone's setting up a joke, where he'll be the punchline.

I'm not running off to disabuse him of the notion, with this Song wearing off so soon.

When it wears off, the disturbance hits, and even a near-deaf kid like that will notice that something is happening in this Tether that shouldn't be.

"Elevator," I say.

Maddy has to think about it, but she thinks _fast_. "Good. Elevator." That's to me. To her partner, "You trust me, Vee. You always have."

That doesn't get disagreement, at least.

I'm not sure if the non-reaction from the Habbalite is a good sign or not, but it seems to satisfy Maddy, who leaves her be to approach Zhune and the Impudite he's wrangled to his feet by now. She takes hold of her target's arm, and tells Zhune, "Get her," with a gesture towards her own partner.

And _my_ partner doesn't quibble, or try to keep hold of our real target. He leaves the Impudite to Maddy, and puts a hand to Vivienne instead, turning her towards our new exit plan. "We're all in this together," he says, and that sounds like something meant to be reassuring. To direct a self-traumatized Habbalite in a useful direction as gently as possible.

My partner is never gentle without a reason.

I don't have time to think about this. I need to get in the elevator, and out of here, before this song wears off. I grab a plastic-capped pen from the office desk, and dash for the elevator. There, I stand as far to the side as I can and press the down button with the pen.

Nothing sprays or shocks or stabs me, so that's _one_ good development today.

Maddy marches the Impudite up to the elevator doors like a Balseraph who has great experience with this move. Back at the office, Vivienne is staring at Zhune like he's done something horrific, or _is_ something horrific. But she doesn't fight against his gentle direction towards the point we're all clustering around.

The elevator doors open.

And they didn't fill it with bees, so that's a plus.


	19. Players Are Not Allowed to Make a Move That Returns the Game to the Previous Position

The central tenet of the Game is that there are rules.

You may not know them. You may not be capable of knowing them; your nature or your Force-makeup or your memory may be insufficient to your knowing; you may be outmaneuvered and deceived by those who know more, and thus fail in your knowing.

But there are rules.

Central. Immutable. To not believe there are rules would be anathema.

I don't know what I'm doing with my hands. There's a stinging line of pain across my cheek like a descant: thin, high sensation that slides away when I try to focus on it. Zhune has his palm below my shoulderblade, pressure that _looks_ like a gentle guide, feels like a shove, my skin crawling away under my jacket. I think of ripples in a stretched membrane, rebounding from being struck. I think of wave-patterns that cross and interfere and stop making sense, and I almost fall.

My own resonance shouldn't have –

It's not like I haven't bounced resonance before. Who hasn't? It's a hazard of the job: eventually you overreach or get unlucky and you're staring your own projected emotion down at point-blank range. You cope. I cope. I know that my resonance, like all Habbalah's resonance, is a _temporary_ readjustment of the functioning of the world. You wait it out. It's better, sometimes, when it's yours, because you know intimately what you were trying to make someone else feel. You know the shape of it, and why it works. You had to, to give it away. So you can intellectually follow it while it holds you and fucks you up. Better when it's yours: someone else's resonance you can't _predict_.

I know these things. My knowing doesn't matter because I don't trust myself.

Not my perceptions and not my analysis and not the underlying structure of the world that informs both and I'm not sure that I'm not balanced on quicksand, that I'm not drowning, that there's a stable understructure _at all_ (how could there be, if it is imitable? If a Magpie can read it back to me?) (how could there be, if I didn't _notice_?)

Doubt's not something a Balseraph can do to you. Doubt's an emotion, quicksand-slick freefall, doubt suspends the rules. Doubt's a piss-poor interrogation tool unless you're trying to break someone's loyalty; it's a _paralyzation tactic_ , that's what Jahathanna taught me and that must be right because I can't move. If I move, something will tear.

The Calabite's called the elevator. It's an elevator, freight not passenger, or passenger in such haphazard repair that it might as well be freight. Dull metal walls. I think it is going to kill us. I'm not sure – I'm not sure of anything. I don't trust it. Comedians built it.

(I don't trust anything. Not the hand on my back and not the cleverness of the Calabite's planning and not even – I know it's not _real_ but it's still _true_ , as much as anything is true and very little is, truth is an absence and not even Madeline can tell me different, she _tried_ and what does it mean that she couldn't?)

Madeline pushes the Impudite into the elevator and he does not immediately dissolve or set off a bomb or become covered in paint or slime emitted from the ceiling – the elevator must be subtle – are Comedians ever subtle? Is subtlety the joke? – and nods, and then I am also being pushed into the elevator and I could scream if I was sure of what screaming would do.

I don't know if I'm going to go back together once this wears off.

I should; I've been hit with worse, I've crawled on my knees under grief and disgust and terror and I have always known that I am stronger and smarter and more _cognizant_ than anything I or another angel serving in Hell could ever do to me; I _have always known_. 

I doubt.

If Zhune hadn't -- 

I don't want to think about it; I'm afraid to think about it. If I think about it (there aren't rules, there's just the facsimile of rules, the illusion over the gut-deep urge to _win_ , to _take_ \--) if I think about it I'll -- 

The elevator descends.

We do not die. There is not even a single joybuzzer to annoy us.

Nothing happens _at all_. Very funny.

Back in the basement under the bar, we spill out of the elevator like a misshuffled deck of cards. Madeline holds the Impudite by the wrists and the shoulder, his fingers laced together under the will-shackles like he's worn them before -- do Judges practice, chaining one another, to know how it feels? If I was a Judge, poor limited Heavenly things, clawing at impossible justice (nothing is fair, Madeline would say), I would put on the chains to be sure I _understood_ \-- his teeth are grit, the muscles in his jaw jumping as if he'd like to shout but cannot find the wherewhithal. Then Leo, nervous, glancing between us all as if _we_ are the ones who are liable to explode at any moment.

Myself.

Zhune, his hand at my waist, _guiding_.

I want to stop feeling like this and I don't know if I ever will and I know that's irrational and just resonance and we're walking up the stairs. At least my partner is leading the way. That's -- something.

Right before we emerge into the bar, Leo says, brightly, "Okay, everyone, just act normal!"

Daniel stares at him, and then dissolves into hysterical giggling. Madeline looks at him, looks at me. She shrugs.

"I'm being kidnapped!" says Daniel. "What's normal? Is there a procedure? You fuckers have a procedure for everything, I should know."

I have begun to suspect that our Impudite was one of those Judges who worked with the Game, when he was a Judge. No wonder our dread Prince wants him back.

"In my experience, the process," Leo says, still patient and bright as sunlight, "is that you come along quietly without much fuss and you _don’t_ end up with all your fingers broken, or feeling really awkward about witnesses being murdered."

"Peachy," Daniel says. "Fuck you and your Prince and every cobblestone in Hades."

"Hush," Madeline tells him. "These are not proper sentiments."

She is very convincing. She is always very convincing. (Except when she isn't.) The Impudite quiets. 

We get through the bar without anyone noticing that Daniel is handcuffed. There's a way to do it, in a group this large -- his hands are trapped behind his back and Madeline's hooked her arm through his elbow like he's her new boyfriend, and the rest of us interrupt the view. I do it on instinct. (Zhune does it -- I think he does it deliberately, I can't afford to believe he understands how to behave by instinct, _he is not one of us_.) It's more crowded than it was when we went down into the basement, crowded enough for some cover (how long were we down there? I should know the time. I don't know the time. I am so _tired_ of this.)

We spill out into the thin light of late afternoon, smoke-blue twilight that glints off the snow-encrusted cars in the bar's parking lot. It is cold. My teeth ache when I breathe. 

"Vivienne," Madeline says, very carefully -- she shouldn't have to be that careful with me, she shouldn't ever have to be careful with me at all, she's _my_ responsibility -- "did you bring the rental?" 

"Yes," I say -- it is possible to say -- "it's over there," and I point to the left, where I'd parked the car I drove Zhune here in. I think -- I am almost sure -- that I am as clear of the resonance bounce as I am going to get.

(I wish I wasn't sure; I'm not sure of _enough_. There are still things I don't want to think about. It is going to be a problem. I can't deal with it now.)

Madeline lifts one perfectly arched eyebrow and repeats herself. "Are you sure?"

I'd like to hit her across the mouth. It would not help. Not in front of the Magpies and not in front of the target. We are the Game. We are implacable and immovable and _unitary_. "Yes, Madchen, I'm sure. Black sedan, local plates, right there."

"Or," Leo says, still far too bright and verging on the kind of acid that comes bubbling out of the vats beneath those ubiquitous catwalks in Tartarus, "we could take the car over _there_ , with enough room that no one has to sit on anyone’s lap. Unless you were planning on using the trunk? I’m pretty sure your car has the type you can open from the inside."

"But we rented our car," says Madeline. "Not that there's anything wrong with the car _we_ came in, it's very nice, it fit _all_ the explosives, but we rented a car and we can't just abandon it."

"Sure you can," Leo says. "You walk away. The car stays here. In my experience, it’s very easy." She demonstrates with declarative little hand-gestures. Here, the car. There, us walking away. 

Madeline rolls her eyes. "No, Leo," she says, "we _rented_ it, we're _responsible citizens_ " -- that's for the Impudite, I'm fairly sure -- "we don't break rules. Vee and I can return it when we get where we're going."

"Well, that's your problem --" Leo begins, and then Zhune talks right over her.

"The sedan isn't large enough," he says. "Deal with it later."

There is a chill little pause, while my partner realizes that Leo's partner does not, in the slightest, want her to have a conversation with his attuned. I watch Madeline turn just slightly toward Zhune, her shoulderblades squared and her chin up: her vessel is barely tall enough for the top of her head to reach his shoulder and she is nevertheless brazenly unafraid. "Some of us have Roles, Zhune," she says. "Some of us care about them."

Zhune looks down at her as if he has never once been perturbed by the forces of the law in Hell. "Whereas others involved in this job had enough sense not to attach nearby evidence to Roles in the first place."

Leo manages, "Actually, we could--" 

"-- our Roles," Madeline says, right over her, "have been instrumental in anchoring this operation to the Symphony. We are investigating domestic terrorism. That will hold because we are careful and we behave appropriately and _within expected parameters_. We are taking the rental."

"The parking lot might not be--" Leo tries, but by the rules of this game she is apparently not allowed to talk.

"Surely your Roles can accommodate returning a rental car by proxy," says Zhune. "Do you need me to make you a list of methods to resolve this problem you seem to be having with resource management?"

"I am managing my resources entirely sufficiently! Car, target, full gas tank, recalcitrant but occasionally useful help…" Madeline smiles with all her teeth. It is the smile she uses when she is asking someone she _doesn't_ like a series of unpleasant questions. "I am not having a problem. You are having a problem. Is it that you don't want to sit next to a Comedian? I'd understand that."

"Hey, I'm standing right here," Daniel interjects. "Handcuffed. In a parking lot. _Being kidnapped!_ " He repeats himself, at increasing volume. _I'm being kidnapped! _"__

__I slap my hand over his mouth. If you get the angle right they can't bite you even when they try._ _

__Leo has come around my other side. She says, "Hand me the keys, and we’ll take the sedan. They can keep debating this in the back seat while we get the fuck out of here."_ _

__I wonder why she's capitulated to what Madeline and I want, aside from the entirely sensible desire to no longer be standing in this parking lot with a chained and belligerent Impudite of Dark Humor. Madeline and Zhune are still arguing, in the perfectly even tones reserved for people who are deeply, vehemently angry._ _

__I do not want to sit next to Zhune, or the target. I don't particularly want to sit next to this tiny Calabite who my partner decided was worth antagonizing a Djinn of Theft over, either. (What I want is a deck of cards and a blank anonymous hotel room and Madeline and nothing else. What I want I don't get to have until the job is over.) "Fine," I say, and toss Leo the keys underhand._ _

__She heads off and I follow her, my hand still locked over Daniel's mouth and my arm around his shoulders; he goes with me at a rapid stumble, foot-dragging._ _

__"See?" Madeline says, some sort of conclusive statement behind us, and shows up on Daniel's other side as if she'd never left._ _

__I can feel Zhune's eyes on us like a weight, the whole way to the sedan, and my skin still crawls, just like it had under the resonance bounce. (I wish, for the first time in a long time, for the ability to mark this vessel like I've marked my real skin, a wall of tiny Rules against ever forgetting.)_ _


	20. In Which No One Is Happy

I've found the only classical music station on the dial. The signal's not great, and slides in and out as we drive, bringing crackling up over the music, then fading back into the endless churn of a few dozen musicians churning away at their respective stringed instruments. I have turned up the volume so loud that it's verging on physically painful.

And yet I can still hear the argument going on in the back seat.

We have long since left the point of arguing about which car we are taking, or should have taken, or would be taking in the ideal world which is not this one. There was a long digression about Roles, the nature of Roles, the advisability of various types of Roles, how said Roles attach to jobs with a high degree of confidentiality and subterfuge, and then a brief return to the topic of rental cars in particular and why Some People--I can hear the capital letters from here, through the music and multiple station identification breaks, plus a long section on sponsors of this station--do or do not rent cars when on the aforementioned types of jobs. Or put into place various plans for dealing with rental cars that inevitably ought to be abandoned, and honestly, if I were armed, I would be tempted to _make_ the people in the back be quiet.

That was half an hour ago.

The terrible, unfortunate Impudite seated between my partner and the Habbalite's partner has made occasional conversational forays and protests. Between the ongoing argument and the music, I've been spared hearing much of that. Besides, Zhune slaps a hand over the man's mouth whenever the talking is going on when _he_ wants to talk. If the Impudite talks while Maddy is talking, well, it's her problem, isn't it? She usually stops long enough to explain to him that he's not the sort of person who talks over other people, which keeps him quiet for entire minutes at a time.

While I don't know if the Habbalite is currently as unhappy with her partner as I am with mine, I have my suspicions. She can't possibly be as unhappy with the situation as a whole--but, hey, who knows? We all have our personal, unstated reasons to be feeling that this job did not go quite as we might have preferred. (I'm not sure how I would have preferred it to have gone. With less reason for my partner to be angry at me, maybe. Or someone accidentally shooting the target, with it not being my fault.) She has been trying to get a better signal from the radio, with no success, but I admire the attempt. And it's less uncomfortable than sitting up here this near to her while she was staring out the windshield.

She turns to me, and has to raise her voice quite a ways to be heard over the music. "How long is this drive?"

I stifle my first response. _Too fucking long_. Given the speed we're going, the road conditions, weather ahead, the route as planned--which has some detours onto places a little less full of interested onlookers than the interstates and their immediate exits--and, okay, add in time for gas stops where we all get out of the car for a few minutes and stretch our legs rather than murdering each other...

It occurs to me that if any murdering does start in here, I'm probably the safest person in the car, because I'm driving. Now there's a reason to keep at sixty miles per hour or above as much as possible during this trip.

"Twenty-five hours or so," I say. "We'll be stopping in about two hours for gas."

Sadly, running screaming into the bushes behind the gas station is not a viable option. You only really get one shot at the "run away screaming" approach to major problems that your Prince has assigned to you, and I already used up mine.

I get half a second of undisguised horror from the Habbalite, which I might not have caught if I had more traffic to pay attention to. Our route is neither well-traveled nor well-maintained, but it sure has a lot of straight and flat going for it at the moment.

"--it's about specific _circumstances_ ," Maddy is saying in the back seat, her voice rising over a lull in the music, "making scenes that don't have to do with your Role, don't you ever think about being _surprising_ , I'd think you would, with what you spend all your time doing, even taking into account your Band, surprise is the one time that Role maintenance _isn't_ at the top of the priority list for interacting with the Corporeal!"

"And somehow the need for surprise eradicates the utility of having unsurprising, practical backup plans already formed," Zhune says, with more acid than I am accustomed to hearing in his voice in public, and then, thank all that is holy or unholy or at least musically bombastic, the radio is overriding them again.

"...we could stop for gas sooner," I say to Vivienne. Maybe she's thinking about running screaming into the bushes too. In some ways, it would make this easier. Zhune and I could deliver the Impudite without any Gamesters involved, though this would probably involve a lot of duct tape. If Vivienne does run away at a rest stop, Maddy will almost certainly follow, and then we could just drive away. We were cooperative! We're doing our job!

No one here is going to be that lucky today. Given the ETA for Las Vegas, tomorrow isn't looking too good either.

"Stopping the car will not stop the argument," Vivienne says. She is resigned to this fact. She's probably much older than me, and has far more practice in being resigned to the cruel facts of reality.

"If we stop the car," I point out, "we could drop off the Impudite somewhere out of sight of inconvenient witnesses, with the two of them, and go pick up gas. Without them. Then go back and pick them up."

I catch a fraction of a second, in the rearview mirror, which is at the moment aimed to show me the back seat rather than the back window, of a narrow look from Zhune. He's just going to have to cope. We will get the job done, and I will pay for it later.

On second thought, I'm not sure that leaving Maddy and Zhune alone together is a good idea. We might return to find only one of them still standing.

"Your personal preferences--or mine," the Habbalite says, "are insufficient reason to leave this situation unsupervised."

That sounds like a remarkably polite, if rather stiff, way of saying exactly what I was thinking.

"Vee," says Maddy, raising her voice from the back seat so that even the music can't save us now, "we are having a perfectly civilized discussion. _Aren't we, Zhune._ "

"Indubitably," Zhune says, so Djinn that the word is almost a yawn.

"Well," I say, and actually turn the music down a notch, "we have a few options. The worst of which is leaving the Impudite alone, the second-worst of which is hauling him through a gas station. Do any of us want to leave him with _one_ person standing watch? Or--" I'd say _two people from the same Word_ , but Zhune and Maddy, in all the bits of their argument that I've picked up, have carefully avoided stating that we're not all Game. Or even implying it too heavily. If they think that's important, I should play along. "--with two people who have the same approach to planning? Maddy and I could go get gas, if you think that makes more sense."

"No," says Zhune.

"No," says Vivienne, at the exact same time.

"Not acceptable!" says Madeline, in perfect overlap with the two of them. Cheerful, in exactly the way I sound very cheerful when I'm angry. "Not that there's anything wrong with _you_ , Leo."

How reassuring. How unnerving that it actually _does_ feel a little reassuring. And if the only person not objecting to this plan is the Impudite, I'm willing to consider it a bad one after all. Do I really want to find out what happens if I spend a lot more time alone with the remarkably convincing Balseraph?

"Fine," I say. "Someone else figure out how we're splitting this up. Before we run out of gas, or _I'm_ not the one walking to the station with a gas can."

Maybe it will at least give them a different topic for their argument in the back.

#

This turns out to be much like the old puzzle about the goat, the wolf, and the cabbage. Zhune and I could be alone together (though I'd rather not), and of course Maddy and Vivienne could be alone together, but they won't trust us to hold the Impudite without their supervision and Zhune doesn't trust them to do it without ours. (I am of the opinion that they are Gamesters, ergo we have delivered this poor bastard to the Game and our job is over, but no one is listening to me.) Zhune and Vivienne won't let me and Maddy go anywhere without supervision, and Maddy has decided that she won't let Vivienne and Zhune interact without her supervision, which implies--nothing I want to contemplate at length. We are all far too sensible to leave the Impudite alone with one minder, and besides, we wouldn't be able to agree on who it was.

I'd have soon thrown them all out of the car and gone off to buy gas alone--Zhune can handle himself against two Gamesters who have another person to control in the meanwhile--but somehow this was declared unacceptable. And neither of the Gamesters is willing to stand alone with me and Zhune.

Thus, after almost two hours of discussion, we finally reach a hostile, uneasy agreement to do almost exactly what I first suggested: split up between Maddy and Zhune on one side, and Vivienne and me on the other. The only difference is that the Habbalite and I get to babysit on the side of the road while Djinn and Balseraph have their unending argument on the way to the gas station and back.

I suspect Vivienne views this as something of a hostage situation; she holds onto me, and gets her partner back undamaged. But I don't think it'll come to that. However angry Zhune may be right now, he won't let himself be unprofessional about the job. We are too damn good for that.

In retrospect, handing the keys to Zhune might have been a mistake. But he doesn't actually _crash_ cars, merely damages them and things around them, and if Maddy doesn't like it, she can convince him that she ought to drive.

What she's saying as they walk back towards the car is only, to date, "If you run us into a tree, I am going to be _so annoyed_."

I shove my hands in my pockets. Keeping track of the Impudite is the Habbalite's job. We are on a stretch of highway that was once lined with trees as a sort of windbreak; those trees are now a ragged line of leafless trunks with a gap where one was, near as I can tell, struck by lightning. The day is overcast, and if we do get a storm sweeping in before the car gets back, we're probably all doomed.

For once, I could use a Habbalite of Theft. They'd be able to tell me how high the chances of getting out of the rest of this job by virtue of lightning-driven death would be. Or maybe freezing to death in the snow? It's a long shot. Not worth hoping for.

My partner and her partner get in the car, and drive away without destroying anything important. In the right direction, even. So that's taken care of. The Impudite's staring at the car. Unless he makes a run for it, that's none of my business.

Vivienne is about as chatty. One hand on his shoulder, standing beside the drainage ditch just beyond a puddle that's trying to muster up some black ice, staring out at whatever isn't the car. The horizon, I suppose. This is a flat place with so few features that the sad tree a quarter mile away, across the road, is what you would call a point of interest here.

I huff out a breath that's all white vapor in this cold. Standing on the side of the road. For however long it takes those two to get to a gas station, refill the car, and get back. While arguing. Forever. This is why I wanted to be the one in the car, and not just because it's freezing out here. Maybe the Impudite will make a run for it and everything will get very exciting. Maybe the Impudite will slip on the black ice while making a run for it, break his neck, and we can all go home.

For some highly theoretical value of home.

Maybe Maddy and Zhune will murder each other, we'll have to _walk_ this Impudite to Las Vegas, and I will have some peace and quiet for a few days. It's not the worst thing that could happen on this job.

If someone doesn't speak up soon, I'm going to end up blowing up another tree just for some tension relief. Maybe I could make an exciting pattern out of this stretch of trees. Standing, exploded, standing, exploded, standing, lightning-struck, standing, exploded...

I guess that's not a very exciting pattern after all. Time for plan...whatever iteration of the plan we're on.

"So," I say to the Impudite, "rough weather we've been having lately, huh?"

"You think?" says the Impudite, who does not seem to quite believe he is having this conversation under these circumstances.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm not much for northern climes in the best of seasons." I study the sky, which is even more boring than the landscape. That takes some sort of talent. "I suppose might get some more snow yet. Not so much as it'd be a driving hazard."

Daniel stares at me, now. "Is this a joke?"

"Probably not?" I shrug, hands deeper in my pockets. I should've bought a pair of gloves. "I thought you were the expert on that. I don't do humor. It's not in my job description."

"A fact which we are all very thankful about," Vivienne says, her voice drier than anything in eyeshot.

"I would suggest a game of cards," I say, cheerful in a way that is not meant to fool anyone here, "but I don't know any that are good for three players unless there's a lot more money involved."

"Badly balanced Hearts," Vivienne says. "But you don't like playing cards."

"Not really," I say. "But it depends on the game. Cards have the same problem as chess; you're aware of all the pieces available, which makes things _boring_."

"What would you like to play," Vivienne says. I have no doubt that this is exactly as dangerous an offer from her as it is from her partner; it's merely a different flavor of dangerous.

The Impudite mutters, "You people never talk about anything but the goddamn metaphor. It's boring and it's--it doesn't _matter_."

Vivienne smiles at him, all teeth and not even the pretense of friendliness. "Not to you. Not yet."

The Impudite gives up on this line of conversation, which is a pity, because I'd rather listen to that discussion than stand in silence. And the Habbalite's attention has shifted back to me, because I haven't given her an answer yet. It was, I suppose, technically a question.

There is a small, unwise part of me that wants to suggest Truth Or Dare. I am not actually that stupid.

I check my pockets, which never have the cigarettes I want. Could've bought those while I was out with Maddy, didn't, might not possess them by now if I had bothered, never mind. "I'm out of cards, dice, and portable chess sets. Unless you have an inflatable basketball up your sleeve, we may be down to I Spy."

"I spy South Dakota," says Vivienne. It's almost friendly. I can't imagine this is her idea of a really well-executed job either.

"Pretty sure that starts with an S." I curl my fingers up in these pockets. Maybe there are gloves in the glovebox. You'd think it would have to happen at least once. "Or, wait, maybe I'm supposed to be answering that in the form of a question."

"You must be new," the Impudite tells me. So now I know something I didn't before, or at least a good hint at it, as to why the Game wants this particular un-Judge back so badly they'd send Theft after him too.

"Why do you think so?" Vivienne asks him.

"Is this a game of questions?" he asks, without hesitation.

"Would I play that with a target?" Vivienne asks. 

The Impudite is not paying attention to me anymore. I am rather for it. "Why did you think I didn't come to you people?" 

Vivienne has the rhythm down. "Are you having a good time now?" 

"Fuck you," says the Impudite.

Vivienne says, "Statement."

"And this," I say, "is why it's not half so difficult to have an informative conversation with Secrets as many people would lead you to believe." This is also the kind of conversation that leads me to wondering if Seraphim can pull a truth reading off a question, and if not, whether using the appropriate questioning tone on a statement is enough to slide things past them. I mean, the difference between a question and a statement in English is often nothing but word order and tonal inflection, plus or minus punctuation given the form in which it's being delivered, so I'd think that someone would have tested that by now. Probably in a few different languages. And if Hell were a lot better about warm fuzzy cooperation, maybe I'd even be able to request a copy of that damn experiment and find out, instead of wondering.

"You have had a very interesting career," Vivienne says, consideringly. I am not clear on which of us she's addressing, there, but the Impudite is looking at me now.

I smile nicely back at him.

"Okay, next plan," I say. "Sing-along. Does anyone else know how to do rounds?"

The Impudite open his mouth, and does not say anything cutting. What he does is sing, "Row, row, row your boat..."

The expression on Vivienne's face makes me appreciate Dark Humor for the first time I can remember.

"Sorry," I say to the Impudite. "I don't know that one well enough. But I appreciate the effort." I turn around, a pivot on one foot to stare at the tree line. If Madeline were here, I would say something about explosives. If Zhune were here, and not currently in a murderous mindset, I might express regret that we didn't pack a hammock to string up between the trees. As it is, I am wondering if we're actually going to make it to Las Vegas with all our respective limbs attached. It would take a miracle, and we don't get a lot of these. Maybe I should be starting a betting pool on who's going to get maimed first. "Oh, well. On to Plan C?"

"I liked Plan A," Vivienne says. "The one where we wait patiently for our partners."

"The beauty of Plan A," I respond, all good cheer, "is that we can run it concurrently with any of the other plans, excluding the ones where things explode or we run off across the endless hellish wasteland that is this state. And even if we go for _that_ , they'll probably be able to see us still running by the time we get back, given how flat this place is." I glance over at the Impudite's chained wrists. "I guess tag is right out."

"We already won tag," Vivienne says. "Daniel lost."

"Huh. Good point. So now we're playing freeze tag instead."

Vivienne almost laughs. I swear, that was nearly a chuckle. The Impudite looks at both of us like we are the worst thing that has ever happened to him.

And he and says, like he's worked something out, "How long have _you_ been with the Game, Leo? Can't be more than half a decade."

There are some questions to which there is no good response, and silence is on the list of bad responses. _Hesitation_ is a bad response, and weights any subsequent answer further into badness. "That's an awfully personal question for a first date."

"Sure," says the Impudite. "But I'm guessing--three, four years at most." 

Vivienne says, with some interest, "And how did you arrive at this guess?"

"Because five years ago, _we_ almost picked him up." The Impudite pauses, and then clarifies. "The _other_ we." He makes a little hand gesture towards the sky.

In retrospect, standing around staring blankly into space could've been a better plan. But if this damn Impudite has worked out that connection, he would've done so anyway, and there are probably worse times for this to have come up. Though I'm not sure what a worse time would be; I'm just as glad Maddy isn't participating in this conversation, but if Zhune were here, he'd be a lot better than I am at doing damage control. He knows exactly how to handle the Game, and I...don't. Not in a situation where "handle" doesn't mean either of "flee" or "murder."

Besides, it's a lot easier to get the murdering done when you have a used car lot and the right kind of ethereal at your side.

"Gosh," I say. "Now that you mention it, I remember that. Pretty awkward all around, but since you didn't try a second time, I thought we'd all learned a very important set of lessons from the incident."

"This is entirely fascinating," Vivienne says. "Do go on, Daniel."

"Former colleagues of mine," he says, with enough enjoyment that I am actively wishing for Zhune's return--neat trick, that--"were pretty sure that if they grabbed her and held her still enough in a Tether, she'd go all spinny ring of fire." There are hand gestures for this, too. They're vaguely obscene.

"Former colleagues of yours," I say, bright and clear like the sky we don't have today, "learned otherwise." And there are a few horrible things I could say here, about Cherubim and feathers, which I do not have the stomach for, and no one who has moved from Judgment to Dark Humor would be bothered by them anyway. "I suppose they could always try again and see if that works out better for them than last time. It would be fun. For someone."

Vivienne watching me now, with a degree of focus that is entirely different from what she had for the horizon, or conversations about theoretical card games. "He thinks it would be funny," she says to me. "I am not sure it's something to laugh about."

Neither do I, and that's one more piece of information that I had rather hoped was not in whatever file the Game may keep on me, and which is probably going in there now. If the Game was reasonable, I would say, they can't really hold Judgment jumping me _against_ me, given that I vigorously objected to being dragged away. But we are talking about the Game, here. They could take a few centuries of tediously loyal service to Lucifer himself and find a way to call it treason, if they felt like it.

Maddy's wrong, after all. There aren't rules for everything. Just a lot of people justifying whatever they felt like doing anyway, after the fact. Everything you do is according to the rules if you write them as you go.

"I never understood their brand of humor anyway," I say, because the least bad option I have is to act as if I have done nothing wrong. (That I did nothing wrong in that whole stupid affair is beside the point.) "Dark Humor's, I mean. I think Judgment has theirs surgically removed."

Vivienne has a tiny smile for me which promises a future I will not enjoy. If I can delay said future until after the Vegas hand-off, I can make it Zhune's problem. He wants to hang around with Gamesters and get into so much trouble with them that I'm left having awkward conversations with a Habbalite, _he_ can be the one to fix the resulting fallout afterward. "It must have been such a shock, having it grow back," she says. "Was it, Daniel?"

The Impudite is no longer having fun with this game, or at least he's doing a good imitation of adolescent sullenness. Which means that niche is filled and I have to be airily pleasant for as long as it takes for our partners to get back to us.

You'd think they could fill a tank with gas a little faster than that.


	21. An Interlude, In Which Currency Is Exchanged For Goods And Services

No one had walked into the store for a full forty-five minutes when the two unspeakably hot siblings showed up to break the streak of boredom. There had been one pickup truck--paid at the pump, kept on going--but these two had a Ford Taurus, surprisingly clean, and they pushed into the store with a wave of cold air and the inescapable scent of gasoline.

Kelsey watched them surreptitiously from behind her magazine. The man was a good foot taller than the woman, but they looked too similar to _not_ be siblings, especially since they were the wrong kind of angry with each other to be dating. Angry was the obvious part before anyone said a word. Working the register at this horrible little gas station in a horrible little town had absolutely no benefits beyond the minimum wage itself, except for a chance to watch a lot of people who weren't paying attention to her. So she had all the basics down: dating versus family versus friends, cranky at a trip versus angry at each other, and these were _definitely_ mutually angry people who were neither friends nor having sex.

The woman, who had perfect sleek straight hair some people would kill to have, said to her brother, "You pay! I'll get snacks." Straight towards the coffee machine, which Kelsey probably should've done the refresh on half an hour ago, but the manager got cranky if she went through a lot of coffee without a lot of coffee sales, no matter what the handbook said.

"We don't need snacks," said the brother, in that sort of voice that meant he was about ready to punch someone, but would instead say sharp and horrible things in a very logical kind of way that you couldn't call him on. She knew the type. "All we need is gas, which we have now acquired."

Neither of them sounded local, which was about the least surprising thing all day.

"But look," said the sister. "Little licorice twists. In raspberry." She said this with the earnest cheer of a younger sibling trying to pick a fight in a way their parents couldn't blame her for. Kelsey decided to root for her, on principle. She'd used that tone herself now and again.

"We don't need snacks," said the brother. "We don't need snacks of any kind. No one needs snacks, and we do need to keep moving, because we have appointments to keep." He stepped up to the counter, and laid a fifty dollar bill down in front of Kelsey.

"Half a sec," Kelsey said. "Gotta find the special pen." She pulled open the drawer below the cash register, and poked around at a very leisurely pace.

"I think we should have snacks," said the sister, with a particularly vicious kind of cheer. "I'm sure Leah would like snacks. Wouldn't you like to bring Leah something? It'd be nice."

Whoever Leah was, Kelsey felt sorry for her. Or maybe not too sorry for her, if she was the sort of person who started these fights. Someone didn't like someone else's friend. Or girlfriend. It was maybe one of those things where a brother started dating his sister's best friend and everything got really weird. "Found it," Kelsey said, and held up the pen. She applied it carefully to the fifty-dollar bill. Right by the book, and it's not like the manager would yell at her for holding up a line when there were no other customers in the store.

"If you want to spend your money on snacks, go ahead," said the brother, who was not actually paying any attention to the anti-counterfeiting ritual. Usually it would be a pity to get absolutely no attention from someone that good-looking, but given the mood everyone was in? Maybe it was best just to appreciate them from a safe distance. "Buy some for yourself. Buy some for your friends. If Leah had wanted any snacks, she would have told us."

"You just don't know how to surprise people in good ways," said his sister. "How about popcorn? This popcorn has natural aged cheddar cheese powder on it." She held up a bag demonstratively, and displayed it like a host on the shopping channel, minus a scrolling bar of additional information on the product and how many payments it would take to make it your own.

"I haven't seen any evidence that you know how yourself," said the brother, all acid, and stared at the popcorn as if it was his new personal enemy.

"Did you want the popcorn on the total?" Kelsey asked.

"Nothing but gas," said the brother.

"Everyone except you liked my surprises," said his sister, which was _totally_ a low blow, even if Kelsey wasn't sure on the details. She was beginning to wonder if maybe it wasn't that the man had slept with his sister's best friend, but maybe his sister had slept with his girlfriend. People from further away had much more interesting lives than anyone local.

"Okay," Kelsey said. "Just the gas. Pump three?"

"Yes," said the brother. "You might as well add in the popcorn. Some people need help making friends."

When the door closed behind the two of them, they had already started arguing again. Kelsey picked up the stupid magazine she'd already read twice. Slim chance of anything as interesting as that happening again for a week.


	22. In Which We All Get Popcorn

We have found a new exciting way to sit in the car. On leaving the car, my partner turned around and handed the keys to the _Balseraph_ , not to me. That was merely insulting, and well within the expected range of it on this job. But when I took a shot at the front seat, he said, as if this were perfectly obvious, "You need to take the other side in the back."

Thus, Zhune and I are in the back, with an unhappy Impudite between us. Maddy and Vivienne have the front seat. I suppose this is the happiest arrangement we could all come up with. Stuffing the Impudite in the trunk seems like a better plan with every minute.

Except then there'd be no buffer between me and my partner at all.

Before we are allowed to leave this snowy wasteland, Madeline hands out snacks. Little bags of cheddar popcorn. She twists around and tosses the first one at the Impudite; it bounces off his face and into his lap. (That man would never have done well in Theft.) The second, she presents to me with graceful ceremony. Then she turns back to the front, and hands one over to Vivienne.

"Thank you," Vivienne says, as if this is how road trips always go. Maybe with them that's exactly how it works.

This should be the cue for the car to start. Instead, Maddy turns to the back seat once more, to present the final bag of popcorn, identical to all its distributed fellows, to Zhune. My partner turns out to be the sort of person who can accept a small flashy bag of artificially flavored popcorn in a casual manner that still implies he's doing Maddy a favor by acknowledging its delivery.

"I hate all of you," says the Impudite.

"Eat your popcorn," I tell him. "It's good for you."

He holds up his chained hands silently and pointedly.

While I'm all for blaming this on the Game, in some ways I very much wish this were a purely Theft operation. I could say more about a demon who can't figure out how to perform simple tasks while chained up. Has this never come up for him before? I can't go two years without someone trying to chain me to something, effectively or otherwise, and he must be far older than I am. Almost everyone is.

#

Maddy and Vivienne have spent the last several hours discussing literature. We are all perfectly aware that they are discussing literature as a cover for discussing something more personal that they can't speak about freely in a car full of Magpie and Joker and complicated interpersonal hostility. This is fine by me; it's almost entirely authors I've never read, but at least I have some more titles to look up the next time I can hit a bookstore. There are worse things to listen to in a car for hours. It's not even unpleasant.

The Impudite attempted to involve himself in the conversation once. That didn't go well for him. My partner seems to believe that people we are kidnapping should be seen and not heard.

My partner has been nothing but mildly amused amiability since we re-entered the car. This worries me. Everything worries me lately. This job is made of pure, undiluted worry, and the one time I made the mistake of diluting it with some exciting conversation with the Balseraph, well, we all saw how that turned out. But I _know_ Zhune is angry. Everyone knows Zhune is angry. Those trees we were standing in front of were probably communicating to each other, through slow chemical exchanges in the soil, that he was clearly angry.

If he's decided to turn off the evidence, it's too late. The Djinn facade is, by its nature, a facade, just as much as an Impudite's charm is. There is no use in covering up that he was upset before, and I cannot work this out. He has no reason to be pleasant at me now, or at anyone else.

He might just be doing it to mess with my head. Because he knows how tangled I'll get in trying to figure out what he means, and...it could be that simple.

I have eaten all of my popcorn, and his. There's not a lot else to do in the back of the car, except stare out the window and listen to the Gamesters talk about literature while they talk about something else.

"Are you going to eat that?" I ask the Impudite.

"No," he says. "I realize that you people do all sorts of entertaining things in handcuffs, but your kink is not my kink, and as I don't actually require calories of any kind and I am not bored enough by my predicament, even if my predicament involves involuntary kidnapping and sitting in the middle seat in this tiny, tiny car, forever, to think that eating snack food while my wrists are tied together would be funny for _me_." His volume has been increasing all through this manifesto on snack-eating principles, and by the last word both Gamesters--including the one who is supposed to be driving--are looking back at him.

"So you don't mind if I eat it."

"Leah," Zhune says, and his amusement is terrifying to me, "don't taunt the target."

"Even your Djinn thinks taunting isn't nice!" says the Impudite. I can't tell if he's about to burst into laughter or tears. "I am in a black farce. I didn't think it would happen this fast, you know? But hey. I quit, it figures, here we fucking go, I could have done without the road trip from Hell but you work with what you get--"

Zhune puts a hand over his mouth, and waits patiently. The Impudite is not unconscious when the hand is removed, so I guess some sort of compromise was reached there.

I mean, the constant giggling coming from the middle of the seat is a little unnerving, but what about this situation isn't? I eat his popcorn, and try not think about it too much.

#

The next discussion about the grand gas-acquiring expedition begins when we're in a different kind of hell: suburbia. It's a bleak, flat, sidewalk-free kind of suburbia that doesn't look to be engaging in the theoretical recovery of the housing market. Given the houses and their location, that's to be expected. Letting some of those houses that have clearly been for sale for years fall into decay and be covered over by kudzu is the architectural equivalent of hunting the old and sick in a herd of deer. Painful for the individuals, but for the best overall.

I let Zhune do the talking this time. No one listens to _my_ suggestions on the practical ways to split up and acquire gas. What makes the most sense? Leaving the Impudite with the Gamesters, while I go get gas. Zhune can stay behind and watch them if he feels like it. This is practical. This is not going to happen.

And somehow this becomes an agreement that we're now in areas too populated to have two people stand by the side of the road watching a third man who happens to have his hands chained. Apparently this would lead to awkward questions and unpleasantness and needing to hide the bodies, or something.

I've been spending too much time inside my own head on this trip. This is the problem with letting someone else drive; I don't have the road or the car or the interaction of the two to think about, so my thoughts drift off into directions like comparative literature, and the next thing I know everyone else has agreed that Zhune will take the Impudite somewhere nice and quiet and defensible, while I go into the city with the Gamesters to fill the tank.

This is not my idea of a good plan. But it does explain a lot; Zhune is handing me over to the Habbalite and the Balseraph as collateral, so that he can fuck with the former Judge who's of such interest to the Game in a little privacy, and I get to be a special new type of miserable in being caught between the two of them. (It's not even about what happened in that bathroom with Maddy. I don't think the Habbalite cares. It's about the way the dynamic changes, and not in my favor, when it's both of them and the one of me.) He's so good at multi-tasking.

Maddy pulls over in front of a house that is shuttered, for sale, suffering from some major roof damage that has been done no favors by the most recent snowfall. She asks Zhune, all solicitous sweetness, "Are you sure you two will be alright?"

Zhune pretends to take this question seriously for a second. He turns to the Impudite who's still seated between the two of us, and there is a rush of disturbance as he throws Essence into a Song. Nothing I've ever heard him use before.

The Impudite, who has spent the last two hours bouncing between silence and mild hysterics, looks suddenly and thoroughly...relieved. As if he has finally been allowed to set aside a terrible problem. Nearly at the same time as his posture changes, he starts trying to climb into my partner's lap.

Did not know that Zhune knew any of the Songs of Attraction, much less _that_ one. Not sure I'm any happier for knowing.

"We'll be fine," Zhune says blandly. He slides an arm around the Impudite, and escorts him out of the car. "Have fun. Don't take too long."

What fun we will have, I'm sure.


	23. Interlude: A Captured Piece Reverses Color

Vivienne signaled an interrogation while she and Leo were standing around outside the car waiting for Maddy to come back from paying the gas station attendant inside. Maddy caught it plain as daylight, the hand gesture at Vee's hip, full in her line of sight and completely out of Leo's. The most important signals were simple and obvious and universal within the Game, which did make them easy for outsiders to learn, but also had the distinct merit of saving time and energy: _any_ Gamester knew the gesture for _interrogate this subject here_.

There were variants, of course, for things like _interrogate the subject in Hell_ and _this target is our actual target_ and _extract everything collateral damage permitted_ , but those tended to be particular to one partnership or another, and also terribly clumsy -- if you needed a bunch of sign language to talk to your partner it was hardly a good partnership, after all! She and Vivienne had never set any up. Just the basics. The ones they'd really need in a crisis.

Maddy's usual definition of a crisis involved a lot more immediate physical peril, but she was willing to concede that a twenty-five hour road trip with a target and these two Magpies -- especially after whatever that _fucking Djinn_ had done to her partner -- might be _Vivienne's_ definition of a crisis. Plus she'd had a good forty minutes alone with Leo and the Impudite without Maddy there, and Maddy wasn't about to stop trusting Vivienne's capacity to obtain information that needed to be investigated for the good of Hell and Hades just because she'd bounced her own resonance and been a little terrifying for a while.

Maddy was _angry_ about that. Not that Vee'd made a mistake, but that it had hit her so hard -- it oughtn't have, Vee was the one who was always so staid and particular and she could usually handle anything. And there wasn't time or space to get her alone and make her talk about it and tell her the truth about it and make everything _fixed_ for her. That'd mean leaving the Impudite with Leo and Zhune. Maddy didn't trust Magpies not to steal a target just because they could. It was in their nature.

Also Zhune would probably do it out of spite, to punish Maddy for playing with his pretty, clever partner. 

Zhune did a lot of things out of spite, she was realizing. Well. She could do things out of spite, too, and they'd benefit the cause of Hell while she did them.

So she nodded to Vivienne and made sure that when they all got back in the car Leo wasn't driving. She'd used her will-shackles on the Impudite already, which meant they were going to have to do this the hands-on way, but she'd bet against the house that Leo would be easier hands-on than with all the official trappings. She'd gone under so _sweetly_ , back in the bar. Like she never wanted to do anything else and was just holding on to some sort of vision of propriety that kept her from asking for it.

It was _so_ pretty. Maddy'd do it to her again, even if she didn't want to show Zhune that he had no _fucking control_ over what she and Vivienne could make happen. (None. None at all. Djinn got so fixated, thinking they understood the rules just because they knew about a single stable steady point that was real.)

Vivienne drove the sedan halfway back to where Zhune and the Impudite were waiting, and then turned down a blind alley. Nothing in the back of it but a dumpster and a brick wall, a rusted fire escape and a puddle of slush. She parked the car crosswise, blocking the view if anyone happened to stop by.

Maddy said, with the full weight of utter belief in the right functioning of the Symphony, _never fair_ , "Leo, you need to get out of the car and get down on your knees facing the wall."

It was so gratifying when she did. Just opened up the passenger-side door and walked around the front of the car and dropped to her knees in the slush, staring at the bricks with a faintly puzzled expression, like she wasn't sure what exactly was happening here. That was all right. They could start with that. Maddy followed her out and stood over her left shoulder, just out of visual range. She settled her fingers in Leo's hair. Contact always helped, even if it was a little sad that her hair wasn't really long enough to hold onto tightly.

Vivienne came around her other side, stood where Leo could see her. Maddy smiled -- _your target, Vee_ \-- and Vivienne smiled back, a flash of bright teeth in the red slice of her mouth.

"Why don't you tell us, Leo," she said, all perfect control and precision, and Maddy felt better about _everything_ to see it, "about that Cherub of Judgment."

_\-- ooh._

Leo didn't try to get away -- good girl -- but she tensed through the shoulders and said, acidic and light, "We gave a Cherub of Judgment to our Boss, because a triad was being _annoying_. She got a trip to Stygia out of the deal. You can find it the parade on video if you know who to ask. Is this really relevant --"

Vivienne interrupted her. "We decide what's relevant," she said.

It would be helpful if Leo believed that, so Maddy repeated it for her to make sure she understood. "It's our job to know what's relevant."

"Now define 'annoying'," Vivienne said. "In detail and as is appropriate to this conversation."

"Pretty sure that’s a gerundive," Leo said. "From the verb 'annoy', involving making someone irritated and distracted by means of introducing unwanted stimuli. Example sentence, the fucking Habbalite asked some really annoying questions in the middle of a _more important job_."

The expression on Vivienne's face was all curled-lip incredulity, and Maddy understood: Leo was like someone's kitten who ought to be squirted with a spraybottle for climbing up the drapes. "That was such a bad idea, Leo," she said, which was a bit of a warning, but also just _true_ , and then made sure to hold tightly to Leo's hair so that Vivienne could look her in the eyes.

"You are far too pleased with yourself for someone on their knees in an alleyway," Vivienne said. "Try again. In what fashion was that triad being annoying."

Whatever Vivienne had hit her with was enough to show on her face, her eyes huge and almost luminous, like she was about to cry, and her jaw set against the very idea. "No, we got 'pleased' crossed off the list _hours_ ago," she said. She shivered against Maddy's hand in her hair, and Maddy slid her thumb down the back of her neck and pet at the short-cropped hair there while she fought against the emotion. She should know better. Vee made feelings _stick_. "Judgment was a little annoyed because I dropped a building on one of their triads, and they caught up. Can we go now?"

"We aren't done," Maddy told her. "We're not even _close_ to done with you, Leo."

"First Judgment was annoying," Vivienne said, "and now they were annoyed. What do you mean by 'caught up'? What did they want from you?"

"You know, I never stopped to ask." She was still trying for that vivacious blitheness, but at this point she mostly sounded like she was about to burst into tears and was doing everything she could not to. "I'm told that chatting with angels is -- how would you put it? A bad idea. You could probably ask the Boss. It seemed to be more his business than mine."

Maddy remembered what that information-broker Lilim had said, back when this job had been simple and easy and fun. She asked, "Your partner likes to chat with angels, doesn't he? But then he has a lot of bad ideas. Go on, Leo, just tell us the story, and everything will be fine."

She shook her head, that little helpless psychosomatic negation that subjects so often did when they were refusing to believe what Maddy was telling them. It was always _so_ frustrating, and Maddy had hoped -- it was never good to hope, but she always did, especially when she liked a subject -- that Leo would just _let_ her convince her. "God, this takes me back to college. But I generally managed to turn in papers by deadline anyway. Anyone want to lay bets on how long it’ll take my partner to get bored and come say hello?"

"House wins when you bet," Vivienne said.

"It isn't like we won't return you if you want to be returned," Maddy added, for good measure.

"Why don’t we go back, then? We could have this conversation with more sources of input," Leo said.

"You weren't listening to Madeline," Vivienne told him. "We're not done with you."

"Not even a little," Maddy said, reassuringly. Leo was far too sad to be reassured, of course -- Vee could do that to you -- but the thought counted, and sometimes people remembered afterward and were grateful. "Tell us about the Judges." It would be nice if she knew more specifically what Vivienne was trying to get Leo to confess, but this was the problem with not being able to get her partner alone even for a minute. Improvisation. At least she was good at it.

Leo dropped her eyes and her shoulders slumped even though she stayed kneeling at precise attention, like someone had trained her into it when she'd been a little seven-Force thing. With a terrible sort of resignation, she said, "Why don’t you just tell me what you think the answer is, and I can assure you it’s true? Or do we have to get around to that the slow and boring way?"

It was -- it was _sad_. That wasn't what an interrogation was for at _all_. Maddy wanted to have much more time than these twenty minutes in some freezing dim human suburb with Leo, just so that she could show her that an interrogation was about pushing a subject until the subject wanted to tell _everything_ , not some predetermined right answer. The right answer was giving in. Giving _up_. Whoever had trained Leo to kneel and talk back and cope through Habbalite resonance -- she was coping, it was very strong-willed of her, Vivienne must be so frustrated -- that person hadn't been anything like an artist, and Maddy was almost offended. Or would be offended if she had more time to be.

But Vivienne was already stepping in close and picking up Leo's chin in the strong grip of her fingers, and saying, "You heard what Daniel told me, Leo. Tell me why Judges thought they could get you to betray Hell for them."

Leo grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes. "Maybe they are terrible optimists," she said, as if such a thing as optimism had never existed in this world or any other, and Maddy could _see_ that Vivienne knew she'd resisted that round of resonance. "Maybe they were led terribly astray by a roommate I once had, who swapped sides. Some little Habbie who bounced his own resonance and fell into Heaven. I don’t _know_. They _said_ they wanted to hold me to account for my crimes, and most of our interaction after that involved breaking things."

Vivienne shook her by the jaw, once, hard. "What crimes would those be?"

"Judgment has the strangest ideas about crime," Maddy added, "so we'll understand if it is something you thought was harmless, or you thought was necessary. As long as you tell us the truth."

"Entirely," said Vivienne. "In full."

"I dropped a building on them," Leo said, careful and slow, her face turned up in Vivienne's hand like a flower towards a blinding, burning sun. "Them and a number of Malakim and myself. I imagine it was quite loud. If you want a better explanation, ask _them_."

Then she dissolved Vivienne's suit-jacket, without even a whisper of disturbance. It just went to threads. They fell around her feet with a little soft pattering sound and left her in her shirtsleeves and the shoulder-holster of her gun and that blank and cold expression which meant that Leo would regret everything about _everything_ soon, even if for only as long as Vee could make the really deep emotion stick.

"For someone with that much precision," Vivienne said, pointedly, "you show a remarkable lack of control." Her fingers were pressed in tight enough to Leo's jaw that Maddy could see how the flesh had gone white around them, and thought there would be bruises soon. "Are you sorry?"

"You have no idea," she said, her voice all catch and tremble, and those luminous tears spilled out of her eyes and dripped into Vivienne's palm and Maddy caught her breath, hard, between her teeth. "But it's not _yours."_

Maddy sank to her knees next to Leo without caring at all for the state her slacks would be in when she got up. She pressed against her, shoulder to hip, and cupped her skull in her palm instead of holding so tightly to her hair. "Whose is it?" she asked, as gently as she could.

She _sobbed_ , a wracking thing that made her tremble all over and lean against Maddy as if she'd fall if she didn't -- Maddy thought she _would_ , she'd be curled up in the slush on her side if Maddy wasn't holding her up. "I let them take her away," she said, hardly coherent through the crying, "and I will never see her again, unless I let them take me, and I _won’t_ \--"

"Hush," Maddy told her. "Hush, I know." Which she didn't, of course, but it was the best thing to say to a subject when they were this far gone -- it was comforting now and it would stick when Leo could think again, she'd remember that Maddy knew whatever secret this was, she'd never forget _telling_. "I know, Leo, shh," and wrapped an arm around her waist.

She looked up at Vivienne and raised both her eyebrows, because Vee either had to bounce Leo out of the pit of -- grief, probably, grief hit this hard and this dramatically -- and into something more talkative, or she had to decide they were done, and honestly Maddy thought they should probably be done, considering they had to drive ten more minutes before they got back to that Djinn and their _real_ target.

Vivienne nodded, and let go of Leo's jaw. Done, then. For now.

Maddy had to wrestle Leo to her feet, and she was terribly glad that the Calabite's vessel was so tiny, even smaller than hers, and lighter, too. She went into the back seat of the car, still crying, when Maddy pushed her, so Maddy climbed in after and let Vivienne drive. 

"Leo," she said, and Leo did turn to look at her, so she reached out and smeared her thumb through the teartracks beneath her eye, cupped her cheek in her palm. "Come here," she went on, and drew her down to put her head on her thigh so she could pet her hair, which was satisfying enough for an interrogation she hadn't been planning at _all_.


	24. An Interlude, In Which I Am More Professional Than These People Deserve

The Impudite lost its entertainment value after about fifteen minutes. A pity, but not unexpected; one couldn't expect much from that Band or that Word, and even less from someone who had left Judgment to take up with Dark Humor. It was a sign of a lack of forethought, character, and good taste. People who lacked all of the above, and didn't even have an obsessive commitment to a broken Word, were hardly worth speaking with.

Fortunately, Zhune was not of some Band that required constant amusement. He kept his peace. He kept the peace for the Impudite, too, a trivial matter so long as the Song's effects lasted. That left the both of them in a decaying house, silent as the caves of Hearts in Stygia. No sound but their breathing.

He used the silence to think. Cracks to exploit in the Gamesters, some of them now blocked off. (Given a week, he could get around any of _those_ barriers, but a day of car travel didn't lend itself to much maneuvering.) What he ought to do with his partner.

That was a problem. She was always a problem, which was to be expected. She was young and inexperienced. Experienced in the wrong ways, trained improperly, given all the wrong sorts of education. And little by little, she improved her technique. Learned what rules to bend and which to ignore and which ones she ought to mind.

She should have _known_. She had known. She had broken one of the very simple rules, one that was there hardly for its own sake, but as a warning sign for other, more dangerous steps. And that was a problem, but he hadn't yet decided which direction the scales of responsibility tipped. One could blame a great deal on manipulation and resonance. One could also ask if there had not been a way to avoid becoming vulnerable to it. Ninety percent of chance was watching out to be in the right place at the right time, and a man made his own luck by not walking into unfortunate situations.

They were taking too long. Not so long that he felt he ought to seek them out, but long enough that he tested the connection, and found his partner moving back towards him, and wondered what had used up the time. Perhaps the Balseraph had decided to treat everyone to a round of snacks, or coffee, or music. Perhaps the Balseraph had--well. No. One might safely assume that even that snake's overly indulgent partner, too distracted by philosophy to control matters properly, would not allow excessive indulgence.

Not _twice_.

He followed the line of connection to his partner, and met the car in the driveway. Every house on this street had been given saplings, spindly untended things that couldn't shade a chair, and lines of hedges to the door, which all grew wild and brambly and neatly blocked the line of sight left and right along the block. It was almost like privacy, and a good place to transfer a prisoner whose trembling affection would wear off soon back into the car.

A simple transfer. It should have been. Push the Impudite into the car, with someone seated on the far side, follow in, drive away. Except that his partner was in the back seat with the Balseraph, which even this one Gamester who did not have the control she wanted on the situation (or herself) should have been able to prevent. Knew to prevent.

His partner got out of the car, hands stuffed in her pockets, and met his gaze. A direct _we need to talk_ , no attempt to disguise it, and her neck was all bruises.

She had been crying. Saltwater on her face, he could smell it from where he stood beside her even if he hadn't been able to see the traces. That was not the sort of thing she did, not under lies or twisty manipulative conversations from Balseraphs she found inconveniently pretty.

When she fell out of the water, long ago and not long ago at all, she was crying. 

So that was where the responsibility lay. Simple and straightforward, as he should have realized earlier. They had tried to distract him by reframing the details, making her look complicit, possibly even convincing her of her own complicity. (Far too easy. His partner was excessively vulnerable to guilt. She would grow out of that eventually.) They were trying to distract him.

He ruffled Leah's hair idly, and considered the Habbalite. Neither Player had left the car yet. The Balseraph had the target under control, which was one less detail to worry about. The Players were in separate seats, and that simplified matters as well. Maneuvering inside a car was difficult at best, as well he knew. (The Balseraph would do it more easily in that smaller vessel, but would she abandon the target to deal with a new threat? In a confined environment, likely. Losing vessels meant losing control of the target by default, when in hostile territory. Basic rule.) Assume they were both armed, had minimal Song options (given the lack of many demonstrated during the retrieval), no significant artifacts other than the shackles already on the Impudite, though one couldn't rule out such entirely.

There would be difficulties, but none that were entirely insurmountable. If his partner had maintained the presence of mind to disable some weapons as soon as the Players' hostility became apparent, that gave him better odds.

She stepped in front of him, her back to the car, so close she had to tilt her head back to look him in the face. "Don't," she said, very quietly.

"You worry too much," he said to her.

"We have a _job_ ," she said. She laid a hand flat against his chest. "All we have to do is keep driving."

"We will," he said. "You're a better driver than the Punisher in any case."

The driver's side window rolled down, and that Habbalite asked, "Are you getting in, or should we leave you here?"

"We could get another car," he said thoughtfully. Three people were easier to pack comfortably into any sort, and a faster one might improve the trip.

"We can get inside," Leah said, "and deal with it later. We have everything put together and all we need is delivery." Her voice was perfectly level, in the way it only was when she was putting effort into controlling how it sounded. As sure a tell as any card sharp's.

"Did you hear me?" The Habbalite was also speaking in a bland sort of tone, which meant something quite different.

"Do back up, Leah," Zhune said. She was currently standing between him and the car, which was an inconvenient place for someone in a fragile vessel if she hadn't disabled all the ranged weapons yet. She could do so adeptly in the middle of a firefight, but it was still dangerous.

"Yes, they're terrible people," Leah said, full of a brittle cheer that spoke of something worse than her steadiness had, "but we knew that going in, and nothing important is broken, and we really should get in the car and go. We cannot show up at a Game Tether _without the Gamesters_ and call it a success. The Boss would have reason for complaint. It's sloppy. Damaging and losing the equipment we've been assigned for the job? That's not _professional_."

He tilted her chin back with one knuckle, and felt her shiver as that brushed against a bruise. "Why are you so worried?"

"You do need us," said the Habbalite, as if she were part of this conversation.

"We already lost the truck he gave us," Leah said. Her hands curled up into fists, but she didn't flinch from his touch. Nor did she stand behind him as he'd asked. "We could probably misplace _one_ Gamester and still get a decent grade on this, but both? That starts looking careless."

"It's within tolerances," Zhune said.

"Your leeway," said his partner, so quietly he could barely hear her, "is much greater than mine. Please. Get in the car."

He swept a hand through her hair. "Sit up front," he said. "You're no good at handling that Impudite."

She didn't argue. In some ways, she really was learning how the world worked. She walked around the car, and sat in the front seat, buckling in properly.

He took the other side of the back seat, putting the Impudite between himself and the Balseraph, who wasn't much of a physical barrier, but could manage some basic control methods through voice alone. Will shackles were useful that way; he did miss having a set, now and again.

The Player in front wasted no time in pulling out and back onto the road. As if he might change his mind otherwise. He settled comfortably into the seat, which would have to hold him for hours and hours yet. Well. He was the right sort of Band for road trips, as it turned out. Conveniently enough.

"What the hell happened to make you all hate each other _more_?" That from the prisoner, who suddenly felt compelled to speak. The Song must have worn off.

Zhune leaned over, and set one hand down on the Impudite's nearest knee to hold it in place. That made it much easier to break his leg. And that done, he repeated the process on the other leg. One might as well be thorough about preventative measures.

His partner stared back at him from the front seat. Likely because of the screaming. 

"We probably should've done that earlier," Zhune told her. One more detail to learn from. A few more decades, and she'd know these sorts of things by instinct.

" _Must_ you?" asked the Balseraph, who was really in no position to complain about other people focusing on the job.

"Only because you never got around to it," he told her, and settled back again.

"Vee, make him be quiet, will you?"

Whatever the Habbalite chose, it turned the Impudite's screaming into hysterical giggles, which were neither more quiet nor more pleasant. Which only went to show that the Players didn't have this situation nearly so controlled as they were vigorously pretending to be the case.

"I guess that's better," said the Balseraph. "Sort of."

His partner was quiet, and staring straight ahead again. Presumably she had picked up on the important aspects already, and was thinking about the implications. Credit where it was certainly due, she was good at thinking matters through to their logical conclusion.

The Habbalite directed some other emotion at the Impudite to quiet him. Zhune largely ignored the interplay. Everything was back on track. As he'd told his partner, there was nothing worth worrying about.


	25. In Which We Change Locations Gracelessly

No one in the car is dead, and I'm still not sure if I'm any happier that way.

Damn them all. That idiot Impudite for Falling when any sensible angel would know enough to stick to where they're wanted, the Habbalite for deciding a decade-old incident needed immediate questioning, my partner for being so ready to throw the job aside--one we were given by our _Prince_ , in collaboration with a _second Prince_ , if ever there were a job to run perfectly it's this one--and that Balseraph for being. Like that.

The Habbalite who threw me into misery and grief is less than an arm's length away, and this is still better than sitting so near to anyone else in the car. I don't want to think about the Balseraph, or the way she told me everything was fine and touched me and I felt _better_. As if I didn't know it was part of the setup, as much a knife as her partner's resonance and questions. Bouncing me between them, that easily, and I gave them more than I meant to.

I don't know what would have happened if I'd given them nothing at all. If Zhune had caught up with us while they were still trying to shake answers out of me, I wouldn't have been able to keep everyone alive. (And will anyone thank me for that? No. Not even the Boss. Maybe he wouldn't mind if we showed up at the Tether with the target and no Gamesters, but how can I know?) So maybe I did the sensible thing, gave them a clue that goes nowhere useful, implies it's not my fault, got them to _stop_. Maybe I did the smart thing by giving in, just a little.

Maybe I'm trying to justify this to myself because I hate to think that after all this time I can still crack that easily under the Habbalite resonance.

At least the Impudite in the back isn't screaming anymore. Or giggling. He's fallen quiet, and the Habbalite says something disdainful about Dark Humor, which I did not catch in full. I should be paying better attention to--everything. The Gamesters and the target and the road, potential danger and current danger. What are the chances that these two will decide we're too risky, and try to get in some murdering action before we can? Because if I were in their place, that's _exactly_ what I would be thinking about.

Vivienne's gun won't be working the next time she uses it. Madeline's is just fine. I was distracted. I was _sloppy_. Or call it stupid, because the Habbalite resonance can do that to you, but it's not an excuse. I should've put a hole in the wall the instant the car stopped--

\--and, what, get shot in the back? Make them think that hauling me back to their home territory was a justifiable pit stop before tracking back to Zhune and reclaiming the target? Which they could do, even if he knew something was up, with some help recruited from Hades. I can't think of any way I could've run this better, and I've still clearly fucked up along the way. A cleanly run job doesn't involve---any of this. Sex in bathrooms and interrogations in alleys. If this were standard Gamester behavior, Zhune would have warned me. He didn't want any of that. So he knew how to play this game, and I didn't, and I messed up badly enough that it's all damage control from here on out.

Damage control and driving, and I don't even get to drive. It's just as well. Too much temptation to make bad choices, there.

The Gamesters are talking about the restaurants of Nebraska. Maybe I should suggest swapping seats at the next stop for gas. Which won't be for some time, and maybe by then they'll have exhausted that turn of conversation, which might or might not be a cover for other types of discussions between them. With Gamesters, I vote for the former, but I don't really care anymore.

They won't try anything like that again. If they want more from me, they'll have to pull me into Hades, or kill Zhune. Or both. Which would distract somewhat from the job--I hope they're at least as professional as I am, and that really shouldn't be something I have to hope for--and so it's either... Either I am reasonably safe from this point out, or I can do nothing about the worst case scenarios.

But there's always a _worse_ case than upsetting these Gamesters, and it involves upsetting my own Prince. 

It turns out that I can spend hours and hours contemplating worst case scenarios, and how I cannot possibly avoid them, before it's time to stop for gas again. This time we don't bother with any separation; Vivienne pulls up to a pump at a gas station, Zhune and Maddy keep the broken-legged Impudite pinned down in back with a coat thrown over his legs, and I get out to fill the tank.

I stand there with the nozzle in the tank, staring out at the interstate and its cars, and wonder what I would do if they drove away without me. Really, it'd be something of a relief. But I'd probably be expected to object in some manner.

"Want to swap off on driving?" I ask the Habbalite, when the tank's full. Because we have hours and hours yet to go, and we may as well pretend that we're all the sorts of professional, focused demons who don't start stabbing each other at the drop of a hat. (No wonder we aren't winning the war. We have numbers and ruthless efficiency, and we don't even need Factions to start kneecapping each other.) We are reasonable people. It would be reasonable to let me drive.

She shrugs, and tosses me the keys. The swap is as easy as that. I have to adjust the seat and mirrors--her vessel has more than a few inches on mine--and then we're back on the road, off to Las Vegas.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Thank god.

#

It's funny how many things happen at three in the morning. Maybe the time slot between bars closing and coffee shops opening is the perfect time for people who don't need sleep to get busy. In any case, the clock on the dashboard say it's 3:07--maybe not in this time zone--when I decide the headlights behind us are significant. These back roads aren't so deserted, even at this time of night, that other traffic is immediately suspicious... But I've been on both sides of a tail too often to not recognize one when it latches on to me.

No real turn-offs here for miles, unless I want to lead them in circles. I tap the rearview mirror. Can't make out how many people are in the car in this darkness. "We have company," I say.

"For about forty miles now, if it's the same car," Vivienne says. "Hard to tell in the dark."

"It is." Which puts us past the _probably a coincidence_ mark on this kind of thing. Once in a while you peg someone as a tail who turns out to just be heading to the same laundromat you're using as a rendezvous point, but some quiet questions in a an alleyway (oh, let's not think about that for long) usually clear up the mistake.

There's a rustle in the back as Zhune turns around to see what he can. Probably not more than I can with the mirror.

"Cards on the table!" It's such a Zhune phrase, it's unnerving to hear it coming from Maddy. He doesn't do chipper that way, either. "Everyone say who might decide to drive after them in the dark through Nebraska. I'll start! Kobalites who might have spotted us on the way out, and rogue Technologists."

"Tech doesn't have a presence in Sioux Falls, Madchen." At least Vivienne sounds focused on the job--though honestly, I'm pretty sure Maddy is just as focused when she's this cheerful as when she's otherwise. "Low odds. Add Free Lilim serving Kobal."

I'm not sure where I'd _start_ in listing people who might be inclined to follow me around and then get impolite when they caught up. (And most of the time, the Game is on that list.) "Is there anyone else who's interested in this guy? I mean, besides Judgment."

"Judgment would be interesting," Zhune says, with such complete serenity that I am almost--almost, not quite--worried that he knows _exactly_ who's behind us, and didn't mention it earlier because he wanted to see how long it would take the rest of us to figure it out. But he wouldn't do that on a job like this. And I can't see how he'd possibly know who's in that car; he hasn't had enough time alone to use his usual secret contacts.

"Shouldn't Kobal, Dominic, and Asmodeus be enough for one man?" We haven't heard from the Impudite in a while, and he doesn't sound any happier than last time. Less screaming, at least.

"We could stop and find out," Zhune says. Entirely casually, as if he is not looking for an excuse to break some heads. Or some brains.

"Or we could keep going," I say, and glance at the tank. We have enough to reach the next city, and there'll be a few places to fill up before then. "How likely is anyone to jump us in a populated area?" Assuming we manage to reach one.

"If they're Judges? Why don't you tell me?" Vivienne is pointing those questions at me. It's a pity that the win conditions for this job wouldn't be fulfilled by driving this car right off a cliff, and it's probably a good thing there's not a cliff handy in this geography, because right now I am tempted _anyway_.

"How should I know?" (Experience says, don't walk around a Sword Tether when Judges are in the area. This is not useful information, even if I were willing to share it.) "When _we_ handle a fucking job, we usually don't have people still following us three states later."

"They weren't following us three states ago," Maddy says, as if this is useful information.

"Historically," says Vivienne, another font of useful information at the moment, "when Judgment attempts to retrieve what it thinks are salvageable demons, do they give you warning before they sweep in? Having never had personal experience, I can't be sure."

"Historically," Zhune says, "they've been fond of selecting inappropriate targets and then falling over their feet in the process. We may as well stop and let them take a shot at it."

Not a _single_ cliff available in miles. It's a crying shame.

"It's not like there's anyone else on the road to notice," says Maddy. _Helping_.

Vivienne says, "If we put the right person out in front, maybe they'll ask questions first."

And Zhune says, "We could simply--"

" _No._ " I don't have to turn around to talk to him, because I know exactly where he is and the sort of thing he intends to say. "No. We are not stopping to chat, we are not engaging in witty repartee, we are not _playing_ with the angels, because we are supposedly professionals and we _will_ get this job completed as if that's actually true. No fucking with Judgment, no clever games against the angels, and definitely no _talking to them_ when all we have to do is STAY THE FUCK AWAY."

I may, in fact, be shouting.

And that car behind us is getting closer. When our speed hasn't changed.

"Too late for that," says Maddy, "they'll be on top of us in a minute. Unless we start going very fast. Then it's a car chase. I've never been in a car chase! Theft is so educational."

" _Theft_?" The Impudite has decided to contribute to the conversation again, and he's not even as loud as I was getting this time.

"Oh, _Lucifer_ ," Maddy says, having been caught in a slip, but not sounding particularly worried about it. "Now we'll have to keep you, won't we."

And at this point they are _welcome to him_.

"If they get much closer," Zhune says calmly, because he is very good at calm in the midst of shouting--it's one of his favorite places to be--"they're like to deploy Songs. Or weapons."

This could get messy. Is about to, no matter who's in that car, because it's not help that's creeping up on our bumper. Messy could turn into a botched job, and we can all four agree on not wanting that. Hell, if they shoot the _Impudite_ , we're in trouble. Delivering a dead vessel is without any value to the people who set this job up, and might be in Dark Humor's best interest. If the Impudite has the brains (he probably does) and the nerves (less likely, in those bonds) he might walk into a bullet directly, in the midst of a fight, to reach the dubious safety of Trauma instead of the far more certain doom of the Game.

"Vivienne," I say, "I need you to drive."

"Without stopping the car?" She's not arguing, but asking for information, and everything else aside, at least we got Gamesters who understand getting the job done.

"Exactly." I throw on the cruise control.

She reaches over to put a hand on the wheel. "Get out of the seat, then."

There are occasional advantages to having a small vessel; in this case, it's that crawling over the gearshift and between the seats to get into the back of the car is only awkward and uncomfortable, and not likely to result in bruising or getting caught between anything. The Habbalite, who has less distance to cover, slides into the driver's seat with more grace than I would've expected. A twitch of the car on the road as the wheel's at an odd angle to her hand, and then she's right in place, as if she's been driving all along.

"Hi," says Maddy, as I end up kneeling in Daniel's lap. Not really sure whether or not this is my least favorite place in the car to be.

I flash her a smile, sharp as the Boss's and full of a confidence I don't have. "The point," I say to Zhune, who is waiting for my explanation or my next move, and who _knows_ that I know what I'm doing, so he's not going to contradict me in front of the others, not this time, not for a moment longer, "is that they don't know where, but you will."

"Where _what_?" asks Maddy, who understands this explanation about as well as Zhune does, so far.

I unbuckle Daniel's seatbelt. "Oh, and Vivienne's gun doesn't work," I say, because it's a bad idea to send allies into combat without all the relevant information.

It's amazing what you can do with eight Essence and the Song of Motion, Celestial version.


	26. Effective Aggressiveness Is Judged By Moving Forward And Landing Legal Strikes

Displaced air makes a distinctive sound, like a popped balloon or a small thunderclap. I hear that even before I hear the disturbance: all the air rushing into where Leo and the Impudite just were. Madeline's sharp inhale. I steal a glance at the back seat through the overhead mirror just in time to see Zhune school his face out of startled displeasure and into the serenity I know full well by now is just a clever mask. (I think of the crackling of the Impudite's tibiae under his hands. There is no serenity in him. I do not think about how long I believed it was there.)

These Magpies have a whole assortment of hidden cards up their sleeves. Celestial Motion was not one I had been expecting. At least Leo had the grace and the professionalism to make it quite clear that she was not executing a sudden capture _en passant_ and running off with the target. (Unless the car behind us -- closer now, and veering into our lane -- is actually full of Thieves, on a pre-arranged trajectory. My partner and I will have a problem if it is. The best move in that situation will be to shoot as many people as possible, as fast as possible, and then begin to search a very large, very rural, very flat area for a broken-legged man and a small woman. I sincerely hope we get Judges or Technologists.)

I say, "Madeline, check your gun." It is intensely inconvenient that Leo's reaction to being interrogated includes casual destruction of my possessions. I liked my suit. The jacket was very flattering. I liked having a working handgun more than I liked my suit.

Madeline unholsters her pistol and I can hear the clicks of her unloading and reloading the magazine. "Looks fine," she says. "Are we going to find out?"

"Possibly," I say. The approaching car is making a concerted attempt to run me off the road. I press the gas pedal to the floor. 

"Would you like a replacement for yours?" Zhune inquires. As if having to replace items his partner breaks is a common occurrence. (As if I want to take anything from his hands.)

"Couldn't hurt," I say, and take one hand off the wheel to hold it out, palm up. _Yes, I'll take one of your guns away from you. Right now._

The weapon he puts in my hand is an exact twin to mine and Madeline's. Standard-issue for Gamesters on the corporeal. (And humans in some branches of law enforcement. It could be a coincidence. They are very reliable guns. Knowing what I am beginning to know of Zhune, I am sure it is not a coincidence. He probably took it off the body of a Gamester, like the scavenger he is. He wants me to think that he had it all along.) I do not thank him. I check that the safety is on -- it is -- and drop the gun in my lap so that I can attempt to not crash the car while getting as far away from Leo and the Impudite as possible.

It is not going to be much farther. Our company is aggressive. (Not Technologists. Technologists would shoot first. Or have an exploding car with an extendible grappling hook. Technologists are horrific to deal with. Judges remain a significant possibility. Do Kobalites drive this well? Some might.) They swerve into my lane. Driver, passenger seat passenger, there'll be a third in the back if they're Judges (or Thieves, Magpies travel in packs, partnerships like the two we've been saddled with are rare --)

I pull off onto the shoulder before they force me off and round the car in a screech of brakes.

"Shall we find out what we've caught?" I ask. The other car careens thirty feet onward and comes to a sharp halt.

Outside our vehicle the air is thin and freezing, with a low wind that whips through my shirtsleeves and makes my vessel shiver. Zhune's gun fits in my palm like my own. Behind me, the backseat doors thunk closed, and Madeline comes to stand at my left. There are mudstains on the knees of her slacks, and every inch of her otherwise is composed, an unfolded and readied switchblade. Zhune ends up behind us; the suggestion of muscle. Backup. We are a stable triangle for combat purposes, if not for anything else.

The other car disgorges a triangle of its own. White woman, khakis and a blouse, brown hair in a ponytail, hand on the butt of her gun. White man, heavyset and broad-shouldered, workboots and hard-wearing denim. He takes point. The last is a Hispanic man, tall and angular and holding himself as if the world might get on his skin. Unmistakably a Seraph. Unmistakably, when the three of them walk towards us, a Triad of Judgment. (Seraph, Cherub, Other. The standard set. Malakite or Mercurian, depending on whether they think they can take Daniel home or whether they're planning on killing him here.) 

None of them look pleased. That's all right. Neither do we.

The Cherub glances pointedly at the trunk of the car, and I watch the other two pick up on it. They are wondering if we have stashed the Impudite in there. I am more interested in how well they work together without speaking. This is an established Triad. They will not be easy to take down.

I smile at them. "Well hello," I say. "What brings you to this scenic part of North America so very late at night?"

The Malakite looks me over with an inquisitive sort of disdain, sets her shoulders, and gets her mouth halfway open before there is a peal of disturbance like someone pulled the rope of a churchbell, a resonant vibrating ring. The Malakite shuts her mouth and proceeds to look faintly put out -- enough that I spend a useless second wondering if _Zhune_ sang whatever that was before I spot the way concentration is dissolving off the Seraph's face in the wake of his effort. Silent singing. No obvious effects. The combination implies something with psychological effects which would be useful enough to a Seraph of Judgment that he'd learn it by heart. 

I take quick inventory of my own mental state: I am cold, and ready for danger, and not thinking about the Djinn I have been dealing with, and I feel -- fine.

I feel _content_. I feel no urge towards rapid and effective violence against the forces of the Archangel of Judgment.

This is incorrect.

"Ethereal fucking _Harmony_ ," says Madeline, under her breath. Which rather confirms it.

First-Fallen in the depths of _hell_. Angels that do not serve as I do really ought not to make me feel in ways I have no intention of feeling.

"Not interested in the direct method, then?" I call over to the Judges. "We could have settled this so much faster if you hadn't done that."

They deign to approach us. The Seraph hangs back between the other two (low on corporeal Forces -- and the Cherub is probably attuned) and still manages to look like he is in charge of not only the Triad but the sky and the asphalt. _Judges_. Madeline is looking at him as if she'd like to take him apart with her hands, if only she was currently capable of violence.

Snakes fight over territory as if they were cats. Especially snakes on opposite sides of the War.

The Cherub says, "Would anyone like to do this the easy way?"

"Your definition of easy never matches ours," says Madeline. "It is a consistent ethical problem! You should work on it."

"I can see you're all good friends," says the Malakite, with enough bright sarcasm that even that stick of a Seraph doesn't wince at the blatant untruth, "but it’s not very efficient to hope that you’ll change your mind again and murder everyone after all, so how about we discuss our options?" 

Well. I already knew that Zhune was less than pleased with us.

This is just confirmation, that's all.

The skin between my shoulderblades crawls where he touched me back in the Kobalite Tether. I wonder how many more guns he has. (-- he is a Djinn, not a Judge Cherub in disguise -- that is too absurd to contemplate. I will not contemplate it.)

The Djinn in question does not answer that blatant bit of provocation. He stands behind us, so still I cannot quite pinpoint how close his hands are to his weaponry, and pretends he is unaffected by everything.

"As if we'd murder each other in front of you," Madeline says. "You'd enjoy it too much. We can't have that."

"Why don't you name your spread of options," I suggest. If I keep us talking long enough, the Ethereal Harmony will wear _off_ and I can hurt someone.

"We can always hope for one person to decide they’d rather negotiate than lose something they feel attached to," the Malakite says to Madeline. She seems to be the designated communicator amongst them. She looks at me next. "It wouldn’t be the first time you sold your employer, would it? We’re not here for you, but what you got your hands on. I wouldn’t mind going through the one to get to the other, but it’s not on my to-do list as such."

Her communication is apparently based primarily in recounting the results of her unpleasant resonance aloud. 

"My employer, yes," I say, between grit teeth, "but never my Prince." (I'd had no choice. Trapped on the riverboat with Technology on one side and Intrigue on the other and the Lethe beneath us; I'd made the best possible bad choice and betrayed my Marquis to the Countess who outranked her and could get me home to the Grey City, and I am ashamed but it was nearly a year ago and Madeline knows all of it already. She was there. I don't care what Zhune thinks of me.)

Madeline, mercifully, talks over whatever the Malakite meant to say next. "We stole our target fair and square," she says, "everything according to procedure, and besides, he left you of his own accord. You have no claim."

In the split-second while I feel simultaneously inclined to violence and clearheaded, there is another ringing of disturbance. That Seraph is spending all his Essence on keeping us contained. It's not Harmony, this time. I want very much to get my fingers wrapped around the Malakite's neck, and feel I'd be entirely capable of doing so, if not for how all my muscles feel thick and stiff and untrained, my hands clumsy weights at the ends of my arms. I'd fumble the trigger of Zhune's gun if I tried to shoot it. He's sung the song of Charm at us, in the privacy of his own head.

I am going to help Madeline dismember him.

The Cherub charges. We have moved past the polite conversation portion of this encounter, and I do not trust myself to hit a moving target with a gun, so I do the next best thing: I run forward towards the Malakite and let the Cherub pass me on his way to tackling Zhune.

I have covered about ten feet of ground before it occurs to me that I am running straight at a grinning Malakite of Judgment, and she has the ever-so-traditional flaming sword.

Stopping would be even _less_ of a good idea than my current bout of mild insanity. Somewhere behind me Madeline is attempting to shoot the Seraph, her gun loud in the cold air. I reach out with my resonance and twist how the world feels for that Malakite. No time for craft, the careful little adjustments of the universe that are for the interrogation chamber, gradations of uncertainty and grief and panic; right now I want big, I want devastating, and I want something that will hit a Judge where such a creature _lives_. I recall the feeling of being lost and alone and without allies, of being the only person in an unforgiving world who is on the right side, and then I subtract from my memory my own certainty that my partner and my Prince would never abandon me. What is left is combat-grade loneliness, and I shove it down the Malakite's throat with my mind.

She staggers; her face whitens and her lips first thin and then go tremulous and slack. But she does not drop her sword and she does not turn away and now I am entirely within range. 

Dodging while Charmed feels like moving through thick water. None of my limbs react as fast as they should. I need to get close enough that I am inside the arc of that sword, close enough that even my clumsy fingers and damaged aim won't matter if I shoot her between the eyes -- except she's a _Malakite_ , if I shoot her she'll come back in another vessel. I spin to the left and the sword catches me on the upper arm instead of sliding under my collarbone. It burns. My shirt is on fire. All I can smell is scorched blood.

The _only_ merit of a flaming sword is that it cauterizes everything it cuts.

I come up out of the spin close enough to the Malakite to feel the heat of her body. My left arm is limp and burning and I can't just shoot a Malakite, so I reverse Zhune's gun in my good hand and whip the butt of it across her face. She grunts and spits blood at my eyes and her knee drives up into my stomach.

I wonder if I can put out my shirt with a Malakite. I wonder if I'll get a chance, or if it'll matter, as the flat of the Lucifer-blessed sword is pressed against my cheek and my _hair_ is on fire, and I would really, truly like to soul-kill this Malakite. 

There is a lot of shooting going on, somewhere behind me. Two guns, now, and they sound the same, which means Madeline and Zhune, if Zhune's other gun is also one of the standard-issue type -- I lose track when the Malakite slices her sword downward and _into_ my shoulder.

Enough of this. I am not losing a vessel to a _Judge_. I still have the gun, and gut wounds don't kill fast enough to be a problem. I point the barrel of it downward toward her belly and hope that the bullet doesn't hit either her vessel's femoral arteries or go through them into some part of me. The recoil hurts when I fire, more than I expected. My entire left side is a rinsing whiteout pain. I shove self-disgust at the Malakite. Her blood smells the same as mine.

Soon Zhune will actually earn his keep and dispose of the Cherub and be _useful_.

Soon my partner will kill that Seraph and come help me.

I just need to keep the Malakite distracted until they do.


	27. In Which I Am Practical About My Short-Term Prospects

I am in a ditch.

I am lying in a ditch half-full of freezing water, which is not actually _frozen_ , because then I could lie on ice and contemplate where I've gone wrong in life and that would be too easy. My shoes are full of mud. Every item of clothing I'm wearing is soaked clean through. If I had a cell phone, which I do not, it would be completely useless by now.

"Everything," says the Impudite contemplatively, looking up at the sky, "is terrible forever." He is flat on his back, and does not seem to appreciate that I've been too nice to sit on his broken legs, even if it would keep some portion of me out of the water. "Including you."

This state is too fucking flat, and I'm stuck with a prisoner (thanks, Boss) who can't so much as walk due to broken legs (thanks, partner), while I wait for other people to figure out who's following them and do something about it. And then, ideally, come back and pick me up.

"Maybe especially you," says the Impudite. He's staring up at the stars, which are admittedly brilliant and clear out here in the middle of fucking nowhere.

There are a few possibilities for what happens next. Not on the list is "everyone parts ways and wanders off," so I don't have to worry about that one. Such as it is. The ideal--and it's a sign of how terrible this whole job has been, that this is the ideal--involves all of those pursuers being summarily dealt with, and then the entire merry band, my partner and two Gamesters and our terrible rental car, returning to pick us up. At which point I get to spend the rest of this trip dripping over a car seat smelling like Nebraskan ditch.

Are we even in Nebraska? I've lost track. I know our next turn, and that was all that seemed important as far as keeping an eye on our location went.

"I don't like you," says the Impudite. He may as well be lecturing the sky. "Did the other Gamesters hurt you? I hope they did. Not that I like them either. I don't like any of you. You can hurt them, next. It's just that I know something about you and they could be anyone."

There are two unpleasant options that are next down on the list. (Two houses, alike in dignity... Never mind.) The first is that Zhune lives through what's going on out and there, and the Gamesters don't. I'd be hard pressed to say whether that would happen because they're up against a particularly enemy or because he's good at shooting people he doesn't like in the back and general combat is a great way to get some plausible deniability on it. If it comes to that, he'll be smug about it and make me guess, and never confirm either way unless I've settled on the wrong answer. The interim result is about the same; he picks me up, we continue to Las Vegas. He can figure out how to talk to the Game Tether about having lost the Gamesters along the way.

"I have no idea why anyone ever had you on a salvageable list. You're hideous. Your partner's worse. Why the fuck did he break my legs? I haven't tried to run away even once. Does he do that to everyone you kidnap? He seems like the type. Fuck him. Fuck you. Fuck me. And Heaven and the rest of it."

The next option, which is far more dubious in results, is that the Gamesters live through this and Zhune doesn't. They have reason to keep Zhune alive; he can find me trivially, and they can't. Even if they have any of a variety of annoying tracking Songs--I've been hit by those before--I am by this point exquisitely aware that neither of them is a Lilim pretending to be something else, and they have nothing I own and no hooks in me to find me by. I suppose they could drive back to where I left the car, and shout. I'm not all that far from the road.

At which point I get to travel back to Las Vegas with the two of them and no partner to defend me. It's not the worst option, but it's the one I like the least. (These are two different categories; they just happen to overlap a lot.) I can't just ditch them. I have a job to do. I have a package to deliver, even if the package happens to be a terrible person who probably deserves a lot worse than a pair of broken legs.

"God," says the terrible person in the ditch with me, "are you just going to lie there or are you ever going to say something?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose. It doesn't help. "Anything I say can and will be held against me when the Game inevitably shakes the contents of your brains out during some interrogation or another. Would you mind shutting up and letting me think? Or you could get a lot noisier, if you _want_ to go hang out with whoever was in that car following us. I'm pretty sure it's not your current coworkers."

"Former coworkers," says the Impudite. "That's my kind of luck."

"Yes, well, I'm trying to keep you away from them. So either shut up or make some useful suggestions."

The absolute worst case scenario, among those which still leave me with something to do other than die and then apologize to the Boss when I get out of Trauma, has everyone with me rendered dead or otherwise immobile, but doing enough damage to their pursuers that I don't have to deal with more than I can handle of those. At which point I'm in the middle of _some_ godforsaken state without any cover, miles and miles from the nearest gas station, _maybe_ with a working vehicle, hauling around a broken-legged demon who doesn't want to stick with me.

"I can't decide what's useful for lying in a ditch with broken legs and a Calabite," says the Impudite. "This was not in the employee handbook. Any employee handbook." He seems to be warming to his topic. "Even when I worked with you people I really didn't spend time in ditches with Calabim. It wasn't a thing. It wasn't _done._ "

I can't help but be somewhat distracted from the matter I'm contemplating, even now that I'm catching a whisper of disturbance from down the road. "Does Dark Humor actually have an employee handbook?"

" _Yes,_ " he says, as if this is a very important point to make. "It's very funny."

"Go figure." I wonder if I should point out that I'm actually with Theft, if he's figured out that detail anyway. No. Probably not. And being part of Theft isn't especially useful right now, because I bet the Game has contingency plans and emergency numbers and...and some idea of what to _do_ in a situation like this.

But I'm a Magpie, so what I've got is _Improvise, Leo_ and _You're good with plans, so come up with one,_ and my partner looking very smug about the matter when I actually do come up with a resolution to some impossible solution.

No cell phone, but I do have Celestial Tongues, which will get me one short message to one person, as that's about all the Essence I have left to work with. (Unless I try to shake some out of the Impudite, and that's just... No. I'm not that kind of Thief. Taking Essence away from someone is uncomfortably personal, especially when I'm not an Impudite myself to find it natural.) If Zhune doesn't come and find me, he's currently in Trauma. Simple as that.

It's the kind of thought that keeps me going, some days. It's as much a comfort as it's ever a terror. He will come and find me, no matter what. Come Heaven or high water. (At least it's not raining.) So all I have to plan for, if he's in Trauma, is what I do until he catches up.

I have to get this damn Impudite to Las Vegas, no matter what. And I don't really have all that many options for people to call in emergencies. Zhune knows everyone in Theft, and many people outside it. Zhune surely has contacts in Nebraska. I have an uneasy relationship with some people on the wrong side of the War, a lot of old enemies, and...well. I suppose I could call Ash. If all else fails, if I'm completely stuck, and if I need to get this Impudite to the Game Tether all on my own (do I even know _which_ Game Tether? surely if I show up in Las Vegas with someone the Game wants, they'll find _me_ ), I can call Ash. He'll give me a hand.

I'll end up wrapped in Geases for the rest of my life, but that's better than being disassembled by my Prince for failure, isn't it?

I almost feel better, knowing that I have a plan to work with. And maybe Judgment will show up at the ditch and shoot me. That could work too. It's like a plan.


	28. If A Pin Is Not Secured To End The Match, One May Win Simply On Points

The Malakite is bleeding all over my legs and I am bleeding all over her shirt, and singeing her besides. Her awful sword is pressed between us like we're a knight and lady in some medieval poem. I've dropped the gun and my hands are wrapped around hers around the hilt of it, holding it still, and it burns us both. The Malakite is making a noise which is something between a wheeze and laughter and a cry. I don't have breath for noises.

Someone is singing Corporeal Healing -- I'd know that one anywhere -- and then there's more disturbance, and Zhune runs right _past_ me and towards my partner and that Seraph. Either he is about to betray us both or Madeline is in more trouble than I am or she's hit the Seraph enough that Zhune thinks it'd be more useful to finish him off --

The Malakite _bites_ me.

She latches on to where my shoulder is open and oozing lymph and blood and worries at the flesh like the dog all Judges are. I stomp as hard as I can on her foot and feel the bones shatter under my heel. She yowls but doesn't let go and one of us surely will poison the other with bodily fluids given enough time.

The entire world lights up, as if we've all been struck by soundless lightning for a single instant. Colorless light. Every strand of the Malakite's hair in clear relief, tacked with sweat against the skin of her neck. 

Then: Madeline shrieks, high-pitched. There is a thud, as if two bodies collide. Cursing, in Helltongue and in a voice I don't know: the Seraph, audible at last. 

I have had enough. I have had so much more than enough. I want to be safe in the casino in Vegas with the Impudite delivered and my partner on my arm and nothing but the sound of shuffling cards for days, and this entire disaster of an assignment over with.

I make the Malakite like me.

Any Habbalite knows _love_. Love and fear are the easiest emotions, the ones we learn first, the ones that are purely instinctive: huge feelings, big enough to drown in. Tiny seven-Force Habbalah wander through Hades with demonlings crawling desperate after them, dying of love, desperate to crawl in front of a train or take a bullet or render someone murdered, all for their beloved. Love is easy and love is uncontrolled, and a target who loves you might keep trying to kill you, or keep trying to resist interrogation. People who love you will do terrible things for your own good.

_Like_ is more complicated, and more useful. People who like you tend to stop trying to rip holes in your shoulder with their teeth. Would _you_ do that to a friend?

Sometimes I think that this is why there are so many Impudites. Everyone _likes_ Impudites. Their survival rates must be higher than the rest of us, just for that.

Liking me, the Malakite lets go. "Hell," she says, looking at the both of us: bloody, burned. It's a fair description.

I smile at her. I'm a reasonable person. I am still holding the hilt of the sword. I pull it out of her hands -- my left arm screams, and the corners of my vision go white -- and say, "Just so."

Then I cut her hamstrings and leave her on her knees.

The sword I toss away from us both. Illuminated only by the headlights of our horrific rental car, Zhune is covered with blood, black in the semidark. Some of it -- a great deal of it, possibly -- is his. His hand is wrapped around the Seraph's throat. He holds him at armslength, and as I watch, he tightens his fingers and the Seraph convulses, as if hung.

My partner is leaning against the car door. I go to her. It takes longer than I want. There are large portions of my anatomy which are not all that functional at the moment. Half of Madeline's jacket is a smoking ruin, and the skin of her chest and stomach underneath is charred white, blistered.

"Hi, Vee," she says. 

I touch her hair with the hand that I can still move without shrieking. She tips her head into my palm.

"Hello, Madchen," I tell her, and send her just the edges of _satisfaction_ , faint, an overlay of an emotion. Her shoulders straighten, even though the motion makes her wince.

"Everything's fine," she says. It is. (It is such a relief to know for sure.)

Behind us, Zhune has done something to the Malakite that has left her vessel unconscious. Efficient, that. I'll give him _useful in a fight_ , everything else aside.

The Malakite disposed of, he decides to sing. His voice is a rich, clear baritone, practiced and resonant and effortless on the melody of Corporeal Healing, and I ought to have guessed that he'd be as obnoxiously good at Singing as he is at anything else he actually deigns to do. 

Well. It's not like we haven't been exceedingly loud already, a little more disturbance can't hurt. I join him.

The feeling when the bleeding stops in my shoulder and my arm is all prickling needles, the muscles trying to knit together and only managing halfway. I am less likely to faint, though, and as fainting would mean leaving Madeline alone with Zhune, I'm glad of it.

She's so patient, my partner. She waits until I am not actively in the process of losing my vessel before she raises her eyebrows pointedly at me and I sing Healing for her, too. Some of the burns go from white to red, charred to badly scorched.

I am nearly out of Essence. I really should get more practice with this Song. 

(Perhaps I don't want to need more practice with this Song.)

I run my fingers through the fall of Madeline's hair. There are ashes on her cheek but the flesh underneath is whole. (Celestial Light has a narrow range. It is one of the only nice things about being hit with that Song -- that, and how it is possible to dodge, and also that it lacks disturbance.) She hums at me, a low sound under her breath. This is the closest to alone we've been since the surveillance of the laundromat, which seems like weeks ago instead of two very long days. I wish Zhune was elsewhere.

He is not elsewhere. 

"That's done with," I say. "I'm assuming you know where your partner teleported off to?"

Zhune gestures back in the direction we came from, more elegantly than anyone covered in drying blood and rising bruises should be able to gesture. "She seems to have escaped any new damage," he says, blandly.

"What a novelty," I say. "She won't match the rest of us at all." 

With some care -- the muscles in my left side are deeply displeased with being asked to both support and maneuver my vessel just now, even after the healing -- I walk over to where I tossed the Malakite's sword. It is still glowing faintly, singeing the dead grass on the shoulder of the road. In a drier season it might have started a fire. (And oh, what a report to my Prince that would be. _We defeated a Triad of Judgment and then called down every celestial in the midwest with the disturbance when we accidentally set Nebraska on fire with a flaming sword?_ I would never live it down.) I pick it up by the hilt.

Behind me, Zhune says, "We may as well take the car better suited to this kind of expedition."

"Do I have to explain about rental car agreements _again_?" asks Madeline. She sounds so despairing as to be theatrical. I should warn her about playing against Zhune. He makes it tempting. And then he cheats.

(He would be a brilliant Player. I still think --)

"Do you have something against inconveniencing our remaining Judge?" he inquires, mild, and with a wave of two fingers that suggests that if we'd like, we could take the Malakite (or pieces of her) with us in the trunk along with her sword.

Madeline sighs. She leans back against the rental and pats it familiarly on the hood. "You just want to steal something. It's so -- predictable."

"If the triad came into this fight expecting us to drive away in their car," Zhune says, as if he is deliberately misunderstanding, "Judgment has taken to more interesting tactical approaches than I usually give them credit for."

"Judgment came into this fight expecting to walk away from this fight," I interrupt. "Let's go pick up our erstwhile companions before the Malakite regains enough consciousness to jump to her Heart and call for reinforcements, shall we?"

"Vee," Madeline protests.

"Oh, let him steal a car," I say. "Just keep the keys to ours, we'll hand those in to prove _we_ aren't car thieves. It's fine." In truth, what I want is to get the rest of this drive over with as quickly as possible. I am very, very tired, and we have a target to deliver. 

"If you say so," says Madeline. "But I'm driving. You'd fall over and he'd run us into a tree."

She's probably right. Having had the experience of Zhune driving when _not_ suffering the depredations of Ethereal Charm, I have no desire to experience Zhune driving _with_ such impairment. Other reports to my Prince I do not wish to make: _after the combat, we let the Djinn of Theft drive the car, and this is why I need a new vessel now._

Zhune tosses her the keys he's scavenged from the Malakite's pockets, agreeably enough. We are learning a form of civility. (In this form of civility, we do not murder one another, requests to drive the car are reasonable, and no one's partners are off-limits. They are not the best rules for civility I've ever worked with, but they might hold long enough for us to get to Vegas and get free of these Magpies entirely.)

The Judges have a perfectly decent car. It is even slightly larger than ours, if only via square footage, and does not contain the detritus of small bags of popcorn. There is a forlorn cup of coffee in the cup-holder. I remove it and place it, with some ceremony, on the roof of our _former_ car. The Malakite probably will not appreciate the sentiment when she wakes up, but I am enjoying it, and I am enjoying so little lately that I will take what I can get.

I let Zhune sit in the front passenger seat and give Madeline directions. I lean against the backseat door, press my cheek against the window. The glass is cool on my burnt skin. It only takes us fifteen minutes of Madeline's careful, ginger driving before Zhune tells her to stop. I assume the range on Celestial Motion is narrower when one is hauling an entire Impudite's worth of mass along.

We seem to have pulled over by a ditch on the side of the road. Leo is nowhere to be seen.

I am about to inquire as to whether Zhune's resonance is in proper working condition when Leo's head, bedraggled, her hair stuck to her forehead in damp red spikes, emerges from the ditch. She takes in the car we have made off with. She seems to sigh. Slowly, she clambers out of the ditch and to her feet. Every inch of her is covered in mud and slush, and there are fallen leaves caught in her collar. To her credit, she doesn't try to brush herself off. It wouldn't help. 

Well. We're going to ruin the upholstery of this car. I assume Judgment can pick up the cleaning bill.

Zhune opens his door and climbs out to stand next to his partner and gaze contemplatively into the ditch. He drags his fingers through her hair, a messy ruffling. She doesn't lean into it. She straightens her shoulders and jerks her chin up and grimly descends back into the ditch to fetch the Impudite.

I will give Zhune credit where credit is due: he goes in after her, and between them they haul Daniel, his legs dragging on the ground in ways which must be entirely excruciating, out of the ditch and back into the world which contains cars and less mud. 

Then, of course, he tosses the Impudite at me in the back seat, and I receive my share of ditchwater, and an entire reduction in good will. 

"Don't break anyone we still need to hand in, Zhune," Leo says, sounding as completely tired of all of this as I am. She looks plaintively at Madeline in the driver's seat. I _should_ let Leo drive, she's the only one of us who didn't get hit by that Song. Even if it'll wear off soon, that still leaves combat damage (all of us) and general inability to operate a vehicle (on Zhune's part). 

Zhune looks in on me and Daniel, who is limply sprawled against my shoulder. With infinite and gentle patience, he says, "He’s fine, Leah. Vivienne has him."

We are a parody of a working team. I can almost imagine what we'd be like if we were all on the same side.

"Madeline," I say. "Give the Calabite the keys. There are still eight hours and all of Colorado and Utah to go."


	29. In Which Paperwork Is Dealt With

It only takes about an hour of driving in which nothing terrible happens for me to stop wishing, in the most annoyingly persistent way, that I could get three minutes alone with Maddy and one simple request in. Of course I know better, of course I _wouldn't_ , but the thought wouldn't go away for an amount of time that was starting to worry me.

I've been through worse than this. I can even think of examples. Dwelling on those doesn't help, so I focus on taking this car (with rather good handling, so kudos, triad, good judgment there) across the Rockies and then down to Las Vegas.

Now, there aren't a lot of cities on this continent, at least not ones of any size, that you have to be exceptionally careful on. Los Angeles is ours (for values of "ours" that mostly means the Media, no surprise), San Francisco is theirs (though I've done at least three jobs in the city), and most places are just plain mixed.

But if there's a mix to Las Vegas, it's a mix of the Game and the Host, neither of which are exactly what I'd call on _my_ side. Nor am I on theirs. So I can't say it makes me any cheerier to be driving towards that destination.

We're handing someone over to the Game. Someone who never bothered either of us personally. It is the right and true thing for us to do, because everything declared by my Prince automatically becomes right and true.

And of course Zhune doesn't mind. I'm the only one in the car who has a problem with this, aside from the Impudite, and even _he_ would agree that I shouldn't. Even the broken-legged exhausted Joker who used to be a Judge (I think that's the whole big joke of his life, and the only one he gets, right there) would probably tell me I'm an idiot for being concerned about this. He would be right. They are all right.

I'm just so tired of this.

There's a back entrance, which the Gamesters direct me to without any fuss or perceptible tricks. Good on them. We can't stagger through the casino with our mud and blood, dragging the Impudite along. Even if we did dry off hours ago. So I get to park in the back near a discreet service entrance, and I am _not_ allowed--Zhune makes this clear with look and hand gesture alone, because by now he knows what I'm thinking--to just idle the car while we shove everyone else out, and then drive away.

Pity, really. Walking into a Game Tether is only slightly less worrisome than walking into a Judgment Tether. I can think of at least five Heavenly Words whose Tethers I'd rather walk into, having been announced beforehand, than this one.

A young woman is at the door to meet us. She's wearing not much in a very deliberate way, where the display of skin is as much the uniform as the actual outfit. Cocktail waitress, I suspect, and so unsurprised at our appearance that she's unlikely to be human.

Once again, I am not allowed to drop the Impudite on the floor and leave. We are escorted ever so politely, with almost nothing said, to a freight elevator. Zhune is hauling the Impudite along; the Habbalite is on the prisoner's other side, as if there is always a chance of escape that she should watch against. (Or a chance of us trying to run off with the man, even here and now.) Maddy beside her, the two of them in perfect formation. It's a formation made of two people, but it's still exactly that; straight-backed, alert, _formal_. The way Regan would stand when superior officers were around to witness it, or when she wanted to make a point to me.

Zhune does not stand like them. It's a small, terrible relief. He could. He could do it just to annoy them, just to annoy me, just to make the Impudite keep guessing as to who's on what side, if that poor bastard has any guessing left in him. But Zhune is portraying relaxed elegance, as if the mud up to his calves and the blood and the tears are all part of what classy Magpies are wearing these days. He's doing his job, but he's not one of them.

I don't think I could stand it, right now, if the three of them together looked like they all belonged here, some sort of terrible reflection of a triad, while I staggered along behind, muddier and less bloody. It looks like I ran and hid during a fight. Which I did. It's not atypical. I'm very good at running away from things.

At the top of the service elevator, we spill out into a hallway where a man is waiting for us. He is the opposite of a cocktail waitress, in the way that reminds me how much I hate wearing a female vessel. Dark and slick, in the kind of suit Zhune would voluntarily wear. Everything about him says Impudite or Balseraph, and the calculation he is doing as we step out of the elevator implies Seneschal. Ordinary demons, even in a Tether of their Prince's Word, might worry a little when four demons show up hauling a third. This man is not worried, except possibly for his carpets, and not significantly for them, given the back part of the casino we're currently standing in.

He raises one eyebrow.

I always end up wondering if Impudites practice that in a mirror when they're younger, or if it comes pre-installed, like Balseraph smugness.

Our resident Habbalite speaks up before anyone else has to, a quick gesture indicating herself and her partner. "Vivienne and Madeline. And," she continues, her gesture now encompassing all of us, target through Magpies back to Gamesters again, "consultants. I believe you're expecting us. We have a subject to remand into the custody of the Halls of Loyalty. If we might use your Tether locus?"

It's a sign of how rough this has been on that damn Impudite that he doesn't even protest. Or maybe it's just a sign that he's smart enough to know when the energy would be wasted.

"Naturally," says the Seneschal. Smooth as black ice. "Perhaps a drink, first? Compliments of the house. You seem to have had an adventure."

Maybe we could just leap out a window. We're not all that far up, I'm pretty good at landing on my feet, and I could take out the window easily. Delivery is done. I want to get out of here before something painful or embarrassing happens.

"We wouldn't want to get our adventure on your upholstery." Vivienne is being brisk, and I could almost thank her. Or maybe she's just tired of Zhune standing around with an air of amused tolerance for all this sort of thing. As if he's letting the Game run things to make them happy. "And our consultants are unlikely to want to stay anywhere for very long. They're not the type."

"If you insist," says the Seneschal. He turns his attention ever so graciously on my partner, who I wish could just act...well, I can never expect Zhune to act as tired as everyone is probably feeling. But less like a smug asshole. That's the province of the locals in a given Tether. "If you can afford the time and have more suitable attire, the casino will spot you and your partner a few hundred chips, in appreciation for all your work with our Prince's agents." He is as smooth as silk, and can return Zhune's condescending tolerance with a great deal more backup. Before my partner can even respond to that, he's on to addressing the woman who escorted us in. "Claudine, show Madeline and the muddier consultant where the Tether locus is, would you? All the paperwork is set up, all she needs to do is sign off. One signature from each party."

My partner ought to object.

My partner knows better than to argue with a Seneschal in his own Tether, when we still have the last part of this job to do. He nods to the man agreeably, and Claudine is showing us where the Tether locus is. What am I supposed to do except follow along? It wouldn't do to cause a scene over nothing at all.

Claudine is an exceedingly helpful waitress, and I'm guessing she's not human, because she hoists the Impudite over one shoulder before she leads the way. Mental note: don't get into a fight with the waitress.

This time we take an elevator that is not made for freight. I'm given two floors of travel to contemplate my current appearance in the mirror. I'd say I look like Hell, but between the Shedim and the Impudites of that place, I'm neither horrific nor stylish enough to qualify. Maddy, who has been in combat rather than in a ditch, comes off much better in the mirrors, so I watch her instead. She is still all Balseraph, compact though the vessel is.

We're spit out into a hallway designed for people wearing better clothing, and from there into a room that screams of ill-advised financial choices. My filthy shoes sink down into plush carpet with every step, and the paperwork has been laid out on green felt tables that are just waiting for cards. Zhune would love this place.

I pick up the set of paperwork without touching anything other than the carpet. Knowing the Game, if I sit down in a chair, they'll send me a cleaning bill, or possibly arrest me for damage to official property. "Well," I say. "I suppose I should've expected this part."

Claudine sets the Impudite down, and offers me a pen. She doesn't have to say that, yes, I should have.

"Could you kill me?" asks the Impudite on the floor. His expression towards me is nothing I can immediately identify. Maybe he can't either, at this point. It's been a very long day. "Instead. Just as a favor, you know."

"Let me think about it," I say, taking the pen. I read through the papers. Nothing in here implies that I'm promising the Game anything interesting regarding my soul, future interactions, or so much as friendly banter. Mostly we're stating that we've delivered this particular Impudite (Daniel, of Dark Humor, formerly of Judgment) to this place at a certain date and time, and then we need to sign that it's us in particular who delivered him and state this is all the case. There is not, unlike many human-style forms, any caveat about this being to the best of our knowledge.

"Do you want me to explain anything to you?" Maddy asks. She's always so helpful. Even when I'm on my knees in an alleyway, with her partner shoving the unreal into my head. "On the forms."

I offer the forms over to her, along with the pen. "Would it be a terrible idea to sign on the indicated line?" It doesn't really matter what she answers, but I'd like to know what she'll say.

"There are a lot of terrible ideas in the world," says Maddy. "But unless you genuinely disbelieve that you helped bring this Impudite, who is the Impudite described, to this Tether, I can't imagine why you wouldn't sign them." Her smile's wry, and far too easy to believe. "This is very standard paperwork, Leo. We sign them all the time."

"It _could_ be a clever con from start to finish," I say. "But it seems like it'd be an awful lot of work to go through for not much result." I sign my name to the appropriate part of the form. Yes, it's certainly me who hauled this man in.

Maddy signs her name in the other slot, spelled out in full. "See? Nothing terrible happened."

I suspect the Impudite on the floor would disagree.

I look down at where he's lying, and shrug. "Thought about it," I say. "I've decided that I don't believe in murder as a conflict resolution technique before running through other available options. Sorry."

"Like hell you're sorry," says the Impudite.

"Got me there," I say.

"Daniel, hush, you know better," says Maddy. Her, he listens to. Balseraphs are so very convincing. She pins the paperwork to his shirt, like he's a marathon runner or being sent out to advertise sandwiches to the far-sighted. She explains to me, the pinning done, "So that he doesn't get misfiled on the other side, see?"

"How efficient," I say. "When we send things back home, we usually just sort of chuck them in the right direction and expect that if anyone wants that, they'll catch it on the other side."

"If we chucked him he'd hit the Player on duty in the Halls," Maddy says. "It wouldn't be polite." She stands up, and dusts off her hands on her filthy slacks. At this point it's hard to tell the blood stains from the mud stains, especially in the dim lighting. "Go ahead, Claudine, we're done here."

Daniel has moved beyond miserable desperation, by the way he's looking at us. He would've had a better chance asking Maddy for help than me, after what he did. (Or maybe he correctly identified me as the soft spot in this group, and I need to get a lot better at hiding that. Or fixing it. Hiding it. I don't know _how_ to fix it.) He's hit the point of despair.

This fucking Impudite is going to something worse than has ever happened to me, and he'd probably be lucky to not live through it.

There's something terribly wrong with my head, because I can't stop feeling sorry for him.

I shove my hands in the pockets of my filthy, no longer wet jacket, and turn away from him. I could not help if I wanted to. I don't want to. I don't. I don't.

There is the usual rumble of disturbance, and the faint sound of air moving into an abandoned face, when Claudine takes her celestial form. I do not turn back to see what Band she is, nor do I check on how exactly the details are being handled when Daniel's pulled celestial as well. They leave this plane of existence, for the one I came from. Off to the Halls of Loyalty, I suppose, while I pretend to examine the details of this no doubt very historic private gaming room.

There are two fingers laid to my collarbone, just at the collar of my shirt. Skin to skin, which I ought to know better than to accept. "I like working with you, Leo," Maddy says. "I do. I've learned a lot of things from you, just in three days."

Maybe it would be better not to look at her, either. But at least one person in this room seems pretty happy with her life. "Did you get anything worthwhile?" I ask her, not exactly the question I mean, and I wonder if she can tell. "From that pit stop in the alley. Because from where I was standing on that one, it didn't seem worth the risk."

"Maybe," she says. Her smile's exactly like it was in that bar, if only for an instant. As if we can rewind to a point when I lost sight of the big picture enough to give in to what seemed like such a good idea, just for the moment. "It was Vee's call. This one's mine." Those two fingers pet my skin, just the one stroke. "Come home with me, Leo."

"And nothing terrible will happen?" Oh, I shouldn't let her answer that question. "You have your partner, and I have mine, and it's polite, isn't it, to go home with the one who brought you?"

"I wouldn't let anything terrible happen," she says. Gentle the way Zhune can be, when there's something difficult at hand. "Hades is a lot nicer than the Midwest. I could show you a good time. You'd like it. Most of our jobs are just about making the world more like it should be. Less mud, promise."

"It's not that easy," I say, because if I say _I would like to believe you_ it will all go in directions that result in...something very wrong, and possibly buildings on fire while Zhune pulls me out. "We're demons, Maddy. We don't _choose_ who has our service. So long as my Boss decides he wants to keep me, that's where I belong. I tried the thing where I wanted to not be in a particular Prince's service once, and that didn't go over real well with anyone. Probably best that I learn from my mistakes."

"See?" she says. "You understand the rules already." And she leans down the two inches between our heights and kisses me. On the forehead, like I'm being sent off. "Call me if you ever change your mind. Or if you want to get drinks in DC." There's a business card in my hand; she's almost as good as Zhune at that kind of trick, which I would not expect. (Nor the blood on the edge of the card.)

"Tell me you won't bring your partner along," I say, lightly as I can, "and I won't bring mine, if I take you up on that."

"Vee drinks vodka from bottles without mixing it. I wouldn't make you drink with her. Not on Earth, anyway." She's dead serious about this, until one side of her mouth quirks up. "You know I wouldn't lie to you about something like that."

"Certainly not." It's a good thing my hands are in my pockets, and that this is a terrible place, which keeps me from having exceedingly unwise ideas. "Should we see about finding our respective partners before anyone loses a limb? Sometimes I think I can't take that man _anywhere_."

Maddy laughs. "He's dreadful. I hope Vivienne hits him if he tries to dismember the Seneschal."

"Oh, he wouldn't do _that_. Probably." I head for the door, because if I stand here in this room with Maddy and no witnesses--I'm far too professional to put myself in situations where unwise choices are likely to result. Too professional to do it twice in three days, anyway. "Though if I'm unlucky he'll want to take that offer of chips, which will probably lead to disaster."

"Oh, but you two should!" says Maddy, taking the lead on the way back to the good elevator. "It's a really nice casino! You could stay. There's a hotel attached, and a bunch of humans to win poker games off of, if you like poker, or slot machines if you don't. I stayed for a week one time."

"Mostly I want a shower," I say wryly. That's the truth, through and through. "Do you think I could just leave my partner here, and pick him up later? So long as Vivienne doesn't try to interrogate him, nothing would end up on fire."

"I think everyone would like a shower," Maddy notes, with a little frown of distaste. "I have Seraph all over me." This time around, it's easy to just watch her reflection in the elevator instead of mine. It helps that there's no one else in here as distraction, or liable to provide commentary.

"That's probably worse than ditch," I say, "and more likely to stain." And something I don't want to cultivate at length.

When the elevator doors open on the third floor, I'm mildly surprised to find my partner, the Seneschal, and Vivienne still standing exactly where we left them. Likely I should be less surprised that they are all wearing the sort of fixed expressions of people vigorously projecting confidence and serenity while working out which way to dodge first if the murdering starts. Whatever conversation they had in our absence, it was less pleasant than ours.

Which, given Maddy suggested I run away from Theft and sign up with Prince Number Four, is sort of impressive.

"All resolved?" asks the Seneschal. Not of me.

"Entirely," says Maddy, and moves to the side of her partner like it's a declaration of loyalty. As if that were ever in doubt, among any of us.

Vivienne holds a hand out to Zhune. "Good game," she says.

He accepts her hand for an entirely standard handshake. No hand-crushing; he's too damn good at this thing to use cheap tricks like that. "We should play again some time," he says.

Vivienne retrieves her hands. She is polite enough not to count her fingers (all still attached), but she has withdrawn into that Habbalite stance. There's a different flavor of arrogance to each Band, and I am oh so very familiar with this particular flavor of it.

"Have a nice trip back to wherever you're going," Maddy says, all amiable sincerity, as if we're newly made friends splitting apart for a time.

"Maybe you can claim those chips," I say to Maddy, which is probably half a dozen types of rude while standing in front of the Seneschal, and like fuck do I care anymore. "Since we need to run. Places to be, things to steal." I smile back at her, nod politely to the Seneschal, and then make for the cargo elevator. Trusting my partner to keep up with me.

Once in a while it's useful to look like the teenage brat in the group.

My partner is reliable. He's at my side, longer stride meaning he didn't even have to break out of a casual walk to catch up, before I reach the doors.

And he doesn't say a damn thing about any of what's happened, not in the last five minutes or last few days, while we get downstairs and out of the no doubt thoroughly surveillance-covered casino hallways. Back out onto the streets. Somewhere I know how to work with.

We leave the Game the Judges' car, and steal ourselves a new one two blocks away. It seems only fair.


	30. Epilogue: A Player's Score Is the Number of Intersections in Their Territory At the Final Position

We fly home.

I pass it off as Role maintenance, which we both sorely need, and book the tickets on the government's dime. What it actually gives us is five and a half uninterrupted hours in the relative silence of an airplane, surrounded by nothing but humans and thirty thousand feet of atmosphere. I sit by the window and Madeline waits until we've reached cruising altitude before unbuckling her seatbelt (she'd never break the rules and do it early, not for her own pleasure) and folding herself under my arm, a compact warm weight. She can look like a university student when she does this, drop ten years off the vessel's age, her hair in her eyes and her hands folded up underneath my chin. I am never sure if she does it because she likes playing junior partner or because she thinks I like it when she pretends.

I don't want to be reassured; I oughtn't need comfort. We've done the job as assigned. We've even done it well, by the purely objective standards of Word and Prince: target acquired and delivered, Kobalites none-the-wiser as to the identity of whoever stole their Impudite. They'll blame Theft, or someone else with a reputation for being loud and absurd and causing unnecessary disturbance. Perhaps they'll consult the available evidence, and blame Judgment. That would be a particularly excellent outcome.

I won't know. Even if the Game bothers to keep track, this is no longer my assignment. I will not hear anything about the disposition of one Tether in Sioux Falls, or even what will happen to Daniel in the Halls of Loyalty. I don't need to know and thus I will not be told, unless it later becomes necessary or useful for me to know.

Tomorrow, or next week, we'll have a new target. 

I wonder if we've done well enough that the next target will be as unusual as this one was. Or if we've done badly enough that the next target will be even more unusual. There's a point at which an exciting assignment turns into a test, and a point at which a test turns into an attempt to exhaust every last resource from a damaged position before it is scrapped.

Primary objectives: secure target, deliver target, divert attention from our Word. Success.

Secondary objectives: turn the Servitors of Theft, or otherwise suborn, infiltrate, or inconvenience them.

Does one interrogation count? (It is canceled by how close that Djinn came to paralyzing me in a net of nothing but philosophy and metaphor.) Unlikely, considering we hardly obtained enough information for blackmail, let alone subversion. (And how much information does that Djinn have about us, to fence with, if we attempted to take his partner from him by right of the law of Hell? I could make the charges, but I couldn't make them stick.)

"You're thinking too much and too loudly," Madeline says. 

"And how do you know this?"

She traces the scoop of my shirt's neckline. "You go all tense. Here. And in your shoulders."

"You are the one who is using me as some sort of pillow."

"You were comfortable before you started thinking," she retorts. "Besides. I bet we get a commendation. Or at least the value of that flaming sword in artifacts of our choosing."

"I am, as ever, utterly reassured by your confidence."

Madeline picks up her head and props her chin in the center of my left trapezius muscle. I wince. "Of course you are," she says. 

"You'd fix it if I wasn't." Outside, we are flying over solid cloud-cover. One featureless sheet of silver-grey that glows with reflected light, too bright to look at for long.

"Whenever you want," Madeline says. I can hear what she means, which is _whenever you need_. I should tell her what Zhune said to me. I should tell her about the half hour where I wasn't sure if there were rules, or if they mattered if they existed. I should tell her in detail.

I spin a strand of her hair between my forefinger and thumb, a silky black twist. "Did you get anything more out of Leo, when you were making the drop-off?" I ask.

She hums, a considering between-the-teeth sound. "Not exactly," she says. "She wants someone to tell her how the world works. Badly! So badly she almost forgave me for making her confess."

"But," I say. Madeline will go off on rhapsodies about the different kinds of confession if I let her. Gentle redirection to the actual topic of conversation is usually sufficient.

"But not enough to betray her Prince and leave her partner," Madeline finishes. "It was kind of admirable! I was offering her exactly what she wanted and she said no for all the right reasons. For a Magpie, she's an awfully good citizen."

I laugh. "Poor Madchen. You like that Calabite and you can't arrest her."

"Someone will arrest her eventually," she says, with perfect confidence.

Someone probably will. Everyone is arrested eventually, even if merely through clerical error and quickly remedied. "And then what?" It's almost like having Madeline tell me a story. A fable, about how all broken things eventually end up in the right places.

"And then I find out and come see her in Hades. It'll be nice, when it happens."

I rearrange her so that she is not balanced chin-first on my shoulder but instead fits securely half on my lap, like she would in the Grey City when she is all coils and wings. "Such an optimist."

"Oh, always. Why not be? We're the Game, we win, it's what we do." She nuzzles at my throat like a kitten. "What do you think we'll be assigned to next, Vee?"

I think of the two Geases I owe that Free Lilim, little pulling fishhooks in the substance of my soul. I think of our reputation in Hades, how it is beginning to be peculiar and a little dangerous, the sort of partnership which is simultaneously _more useful_ and _more exposed_ , and then I think of that Djinn, and what I am not telling Madeline.

She is more loyal to Hell than anyone I've ever met, including perhaps our Prince -- a blasphemous thought if there ever was one -- and I can imagine too well what she'd say.

"At the rate we're going?" I say. "Renegade Nightmares Shedim."

Madeline nips me, right over the artery. "Lucifer preserve us."

"You asked me to speculate."

"You could speculate in nicer directions!"

"What would you want?" I ask. "For an assignment."

She considers this all too seriously. "I want to bring down an entire disloyal movement in Factions. Or interrogate a Knight."

"...the one, and then the other, Madchen. You wouldn't want to overreach."

She laughs. "You never let me take risks," she says. "And I think about the odds so precisely, too." 

This is not true. I let her take all the risks I shouldn't, and a few more of her own besides. We are going to get ourselves killed. But it might be a while from now.


	31. An Epilogue, In Which We Are All So Reassuring

By now, I know what my partner sounds like when he's letting me know that he's entered the room, rather than sneaking in and startling me. So I neither open my eyes nor lift my head until I hear the clink of a bottle on the edge of the bathtub.

"You're going to run through all the hot water, Leah," he says.

"It's a hotel. The hot water supply is infinite." And very soothing, pouring over my head and shoulders, as it has been for most of the last hour.

Rather than argue, Zhune turns the water off. When I crack open my eyes to look at him, I see that he is exactly as I expected: pristine, serene, in excellent style. He is no longer dressed for walking inconspicuously through Sioux Falls. I suppose neither am I, one way or another.

"Tell me you brought clothing," I say, and snag the bottle from where he's set it up before he can hand it to me more pointedly. "For _me_ , even."

"By the television." He stands at the side of the tub, looking down on me with a suspiciously complete benevolence. "Do you need another bottle before you can get out of there under your own power, or will I have to carry you?"

"I'm fine. You're the one who was bleeding." Who still has some interesting bruises down one side of his neck, and probably all across his chest, if I read the tears in his clothing properly. I've gotten so very good at identifying how badly my partner's been mangled in the latest fight. Part of the standard risk assessment for getting a job done with both of us alive.

Risk assessment says he's being far too nice right now. That he chose one of my favorite brands of beer lends weight to this suspicion. Sometimes I think I can tell just how much trouble I'm in by what kind of beer he delivers to me.

I finish the bottle too fast, and climb out of the shower before he _does_ decide to haul me out.

And he doesn't haul me out. He hands me the towel. He gives me the clothing he picked up for me, nothing I'd argue over wearing, piece by piece so that I can get dressed. And when I'm standing there barefoot in the too-expensive hotel room in Reno, which is not the city I would've chosen to stop in, he ruffles my damp hair and says, "You did a good job."

"Like _hell_."

Zhune hands me a second bottle of beer, a trade for the wet towel in my hand. "Job's done. No one's dead who you felt ought to stay alive. What's left to object to?"

Now there's a sore point I can expect to be reminded of for years to come. I resonate the cap off the bottle, take a swig, and don't spill a drop when he pulls me down onto the bed. Tucked into his lap, with an arm draped around me in a way that pins _my_ other arm to my side.

"You did well," my partner says, a murmur in my ear. "You were careless with the Balseraph, and that turned into that whole mess with the interrogation, which wouldn't have happened otherwise. But you've never worked with the Game before. So now you know better." He brushes a strand of damp hair back behind my ear. I ought to get it all cut again, and if he doesn't offer soon I'll take scissors to it myself.

"These things happen," I say. He won't let me off that easily. Not when I didn't let him kill anyone, after the Gamesters had me down on my knees twice, one way and another. (I'm sure the Habbalite preferred the second incident. I am quite deliberately not considering which Maddy enjoyed more.) "Maybe we could just avoid working with them in the future."

"You're so picky, Leah," he says. Affectionate. His chin rests on top of my head. "Them, the Game, or them, those two in particular?"

"Either. Both."

"And you even picked up contact info," he says.

If I had not been so distracted, I would've memorized the number on that card and destroyed it before I ever got in another car with Zhune. Especially before I left my clothes in a heap on the floor and staggered into the shower, trying to get the mud off me like it would take everything else with it, right down the drain. I'm not at my best. I'm not at my second-best. I'm not particularly competent right now, and maybe I should just be grateful that I held myself together, to reasonably professional standards, until we walked out of that Game Tether.

"You're still not allowed to kill them," I say. "Especially in D.C."

"Like we've never pulled off a job there before," he says. Light and amused. "You've forgiven them already? Or do you just not believe we could do it cleanly?"

"We're Magpies. We serve Theft. We don't serve the Word of Murder or Assassination or Petty Revenge." I close my eyes, and drink my beer. "Can't blame them entirely for the mistakes I made, either. You can't expect Gamesters not to act like Gamesters."

"Not when they were fucking with your head," Zhune says, like it's a forgone conclusion. "All the way through."

If she were here instead of him, right this minute, I'd ask her to tell me that everything was fine, so that I could know it was true. Just for a little while. "All the way through," I say. I will not wonder whether or not he believes me. It doesn't change a thing.


End file.
